Old Bond movies and little girl dress-up
brought blue and brown together.
The muddiness created the opposite
effect one would guess.
Pretending was never so pleasing as

their casual conversation locking brass chains to wrists,
feeling cold metal against chapped skin -
wearing faults like purple hearts.
As if the emphasis was placed on the ceremony,
and not the deeds.

There were a lot of spoons bent that night
between introductions and infomercials, him seeing how
far he could reach. Her, squinting all the time.
It was just like Boston in February, but without
the hearts and thorns.

How could I have been so naïve,
dreaming of sunlight in the middle of tar-pitched skies,
like your foreign embrace could satisfy
my hunger for something familiar to hold onto?
Like awkwardness had a place

other than beside lampshades,
so easily within reach of the water glass
now haphazardly knocked to the floor.
Because a bruise is not a bruise
until it is pushed.