picture / this: the sky a muzzled animal / waiting to bear / its teeth / the moon filming / the puddles at our feet with silk / watery skin shifting into a new qipao with every / shot / our first / night full of slow bullets / of rain / you / incandescence / a sudden sun / my chest tightening around your name / steaming bowls of soup / between us i thanked god i had forgotten / my umbrella / i wanted / the rain / to never end / each drop infinite / as we rehearsed our futures / by the ruined building / diligently played our parts / in the dripping debris of each doorway / i was not a good actor / for every time you passed / beneath the shadows i feared / you would come back light / -er having shed / your love for me / a smoke-tangled swallow / throat rumbling with unshed song / perched on an empty windowsill / i am afraid / because every time it rains i will wait / at our corner for you / -r apparition in the night / street lamps wearing yellow / woolen skirts / i am afraid because the sight of your damp hair / takes my breath away / picture this: one day / i wait for you / shirt sticky with / water stuttering from the sky / time lurching towards us in long blinks of light / and you take the opposite sidewalk / hurry past the empty walls / and i will have outlived / us condemned / like a building starved of windows / to peer into the faces of passerby / searching for someone / to love me / as the night swells / with rain our streets become / dark bodies / of water / without you / my lungs fill / with anything but air / tell me what is left / but to keep breathing without / your hand in mine—