Our checks are pale. Our wallets are invalids. Past due, past due, is what our bills are saying and yet we kiss in every corner, scuffing the dust and the cat. Love rises like bread as we go bust.

And tonight our skin, our bones, that have survived our fathers, will meet, delicate in the hold, fastened together in an intricate lock. Then one of us will shout, "My need is more desperate!" and I will eat you slowly with kisses even though the killer in you has gotten out.

When someone kisses someone or flushes the toilet it is my other who sits in a ball and cries. My other beats a tin drum in my heart. My other hangs up laundry as I try to sleep. My other cries and cries and cries when I put on a cocktail dress.

you see, we live in a cold climate and are not permitted to kiss on the street so I made up a song that wasn't true. I made up a song called Marriage.

There is rust in my mouth,the stain of an old kiss.