Audrius

by Jennifer Van Orman

I don’t know my own dimensions
but you are a fine, dark frame,
a house not built.
I am a word not translated
in messy, unreadable print.

On this night, I stumble the plank
of your naked back, want to carve
the black wax of your shoulders.
You grab fistfuls of my hair, knotted pine,
searching

like dreams of finding rooms
where there weren’t rooms before.
We are a perpetual unrolling rug,
a worm circling

around itself, looking for its end,
cut fresh and flat like a celery heart.

Before falling asleep, you tell me of the country
you were born in. I think of letters
I never sent but meant to,
books I’ve been planning to start but haven’t,
things I’ve been starting to say but can’t.

Only that I am running until I set record.
Only whittling until I spark fire.
Only spending until I go broke.