Thisbe Wu

I missed you while you were beside me

and the feeling filled me like a gas, ballooning

me into a mascot of myself. Last night

at the overpriced Japanese restaurant 

I chewed up little green peaches, handed you

their pits. When I left you for a few days 

I felt you leave me entirely. My brain

was reduced to a pit, its meat gnawed off.

The way you gritted your teeth on the ice skating rink

or blended tangerines with milk and called it sorbet

or flicked your tongue out like a lizard while I held

your enormous, hard head—suddenly these felt essential,

fibrous. When these moments had played in front of me

I found them limp: the way you wouldn’t let yourself fall

on the rink, how you were stabbing the ice to stand.

How you sweeped grocery store after store looking

for the right oranges, how you were so hurt

I hadn’t finished the milky pulp in my bowl.

I wasn’t ready to finish. I am not ready to finish.