Caroline Neel

New Year's Day and I burn my tongue
as I try with sweet and cream to dull
the morning ache of a train
searing through the countryside

leaving Montreal to mumble with closed eyes
that we are old enough to know better by now
but I can still lose myself against the window

forget my name in a half dream back into the heat wave
when the fan broke and we melted the whole freezer into our mouths
red juice on your navel and sugar on my lips

each night so heavy
our bodies coiled away from the other to escape the heat
and I couldn't catch you in the nightmare that held me for three summers

white of eyes and voice hoarse
whispered in the dark
the scars on this body are not a dead language
this is a tongue I taught myself

repetition like fever
and when I shake myself free you are gone.

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