Tête-à-tête

All month we talked,
our heads pressed together in the heat of nights,
our hands gripping sweaty beer bottles in twilight
of waning days,
toes rubbing the back of calves in early morning light,
the talk then, just a murmur.
We told stories.
We answered questions.
We stepped all over each others sentences
- little bread crumb trails that we have spit
out and scatter with our sneakers–
we talk and talk, loud over the radio,
softly over the downy sun scented hair of the baby.

We talk.
We start at the beginning and if we get to the end
we start over again,
but usually someone comes along and we switch gears
like travelers pulling to the side of the road to switch drivers,
stopping for a stretch, our backs sweat soaked in this desert of language.

Sometimes we laughed.
Sometimes the words stuck like hard little triangles
in my throat and they didn’t want to come out.
Sometimes we had to type them out.
We talked through windows, the mesh pressed against your nose
and then over the food that was brought out in trays.
Over the wine, the beer, the water,
the gentle snore of a dozing grandfather.

We talked,
as if the words were bricks and we were building a fortress,
a wall, and a tomb, all at once
and nothing was going to change.
We could stay there forever
and later eat the words, and finally
die there.