It’s been almost four mornings since your lips grazed mine,

and you looked at me sweetly and told me to

put my seatbelt on

even though we had arrived – the car was beeping and you were being silly, though now I wonder -

and

it’s been eight mornings since you told me

you were really looking forward to seeing me, and,                        (stupidly, I guess),

I said the same.

Should I contact him? I inquire nervously, barely raising my eyes,

and everyone tells me NO, NO, NO,

This is the game, Sabrina,

Sabrina, the game,

and you’ve given away the ball and let him score,

and now he’s looking for a new partner.

And I hear them, but it’s the way you might hear distant shouting while locked inside a steel drum,

And I think

surely,

this is all very good advice, but no one else saw the fires you started with your eyes, and

surely,

your body has never curved so fiercely around another woman’s body.

Six weeks of digging a hole so the water could

break through –

that’s forty-two mornings, forty-two.

You told me you admired my tenacity with a shovel.

And when the water came, with a whoooosh and a gush that made me

gasp,

I called to you proudly, and said, “Here. Swim with me,”

and you called it a flood.