There’s always stone
or brick or concrete
Is there a difference?
It’s cold and my back
bones are grinding against the mortar
or caulk if it’s someplace cheap

A stairwell or backstage
or a construction detour
Soundproof and damp
even in the thick of summer

I’m pretending it’s a coincidence
that he found me, an accidental
finger on his when he hands
me a pencil, a crowded room
that forces knees to touch,

deliberate perfume on my elbow
when I reach across him for the water
pitcher, the slow pour from its lip
to my glass, he asks

me to meet him after last bell
on the catwalk, and I am
merely writing poems, sneakers dangling
through the lighting grid when he arrives,

he asks me for a casual cocktail
and I shrug as though my humming
hadn’t instructed him. I’m a startled hen
when his strident feathers burst

iridescent like a manhattan opera
That we kiss is happenstance
even that we kiss again
That my knuckles knit to his

in backs of taxis, as though I hadn’t
scripted him pinning me over
and over, alone, in journals and bedrooms
At the end, I exhume my desire

It’s a common rock
from my mother’s landscaping
A secret I swear to keep