The Young Couple

The young couple in the apartment above mine twirl their feet like two frightened waterbugs tilting on the edge of a windowsill. When they come home, their keys rattle like the clacking of hollow teeth, their empty shoes drifting to the floor.

They sing to each other, wrapped together like alpine geese, like a nest of winter snakes, their quiet calls wafting through my screen door. Their love is a cry of pain, the scream gas slowly whistling out of the valve. Their fingers lick together like tongues of flame, reaching up to stroke smooth cheeks, skin damp with the forgotten promises of yesterday’s paycheck, dusted with cigarette smoke, the warm glow of light pollution, and the California desert breeze.

They sleep as if pressed between the corner of the bed and the wall, and wake like a silk breeze passing through an open window. In the quiet whisperings of a pink morning, they disappear, floating like two rosy specters, aspen soot swept up by mountain wind, carried away in the silent city air.