sticky palms

the jam jars smashed all about the kitchen floor
a sheerness coating each boiled down hunk of wild blueberry
hid the shards of glass under dappled splotches of slippery

sweetness. like a hoarder’s house or a clotted past, the lies
you tell when you want it to last. he came in with a
heaving pale of fruit dragging behind him, his grip

sweaty and blushing red—the way mine did the first time
i thought to myself, this is love: unraveling my clenched fists,
stretching out my crackling fingers as they reached for a spoonful, cautious

in their crawling. this is love: i tend to like my toast plain, but for you
i will be brave. puckering my lips and squeezing my eyes shut
like the first teenage gulp of warm liquor, the last scary movie

we watched in flickers: your hand protecting my eyes from the gore
of the narrative. we sit across from each other now. my mind folds
lattices between telling you to go and begging you to stay,

in what now seems a silly use of my best lingerie. like i pried
open that jar of glossy blue, ignored the five-second-rule,
my sticky palms and i smear the floor.
i know i’ll have to wash soon.