The Girl Of Your Dreams

the waves thrash against the vines that grow on our brick walls. i find a piece of sea glass in them one day, a shade of golden amberina, and i know you will like the honeyed transition from dark to light. they sit on the bedside table, sunlight glistering against their sea-slicked surfaces.

at night, you trace patterns into my palm, absentmindedly, and i splay my fingers open as if accepting them. the room is washed with the light of thousands of stars coruscating down upon us.

the antinous mondragone, the marble smooth and cold like winter ink. you remember it was unpacked with lipstick marks on its cheek; someone at the louvre with lips smeared cherry red had made herself hadrian and kissed it. you remember thinking, who could blame her?

sappho and erinna in the garden at mytilene, captured by simeon solomon. it’s been a while since you’ve cried at a painting. you’ve gone to museums armed with ways to analyze what you’re seeing; you know what clouds are saying, you know the language of flowers. but you looked at the painting of those two women clouded in their embrace and didn’t even realize you were crying until you looked at your notes in your lap and the pen was smudged with tears.