Punctuation

The physical is the grammar of our relationship,
Kisses like semi-colons in our days;
The exhaled breath, the considering pause.

And, when it matters, the steady
Punctuation of your palm against me
Structures our fucking into complex sentences.

But often my arms around you
Are not an embrace but parentheses,
Or an aside, withholding my mind.

And I feel your apostrophes getting
More frequent and more possessive,
And my vowels are the ones elided.

We exclaim, in passion and in laughter,
But sometimes your eyes
Are questions I can't answer.

Then the touch of my lips
Is no longer a kiss but an ellipsis,
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