Bubble

 

Bubble

 

She pushes 2 strips of Nicorette

across the counter, didn’t forget

how you always toss packaging;

refuse the plastic. You examine

dark eyes, banded by face mask

and hijab, they’re hot; it lasts -

her burning brand drawing fire

that rises from straw - you mount

the escalator and tamp it out.

Sit, take coffee, glance around

thinking about how you found

a place here. Yesterday, in bed,

giving her lunch, resting heads

afterwards, hearing her shrieks

as Ginebra, letting points leak,

missing baskets, lack control,

could not put balls in the hole.

Reminiscing how you’d cupped

flesh and all that sifted air sucked

through teeth, hoops blown soft

provoke froth, send bubbles aloft,

that live in gilded precious bursts,

can for an instant satisfy thirsts,

then fall in liquids on the earth.

With that conceit; kill your phone -

and long for being left alone.