not alanis

He vanished like a coffin, sinking into the cozy earth.
Except it is far worse because he lives.
He lives to drive another girl to a lake with a nighttime mist
That’s like magic, rising awake, only to drift sleepily at your waist.
He folds into this girl, kisses her soft pillow of stomach,
his hand fitting into hers like a tree into the ground.
They are warm and flushed now.
Yellow lights play on his face and shine like halos in his hair.
But it's just the car headlights fleeing passed us—
passed them.

You should know—
My glad heart swelled every time, into this pink water balloon
inside my chest. My heart inhaled you like a clove’s grateful kiss.
That cinnamon taste, the Christmastime, the brief and giddy dizziness
brings me back to you. To a younger time, when our teeth would clink together
like toasting wine glasses, and I’d point at you with a cocktail straw,
laugh and say, “That was your fault.”