something like a mouth

wads of spat-out gum polka-dot the asphalt
outside my gym's front door
a kind of pattern forming
from the layers & different colors 
all grey-ish from foot traffic 
& weathering
car tire rain 
dulled greens & blues
once vivaciously spearmint
or winter green
or pink bubblegum flavor 

yesterday i caught someone
in the act of dropping his gum
a swift hand cupped over the mouth
& then moved down to his side
the loose drop of the amorphous
glob still fresh & white
perking up from the ground
a warm wet mountain
how his mouth had just 
held this thing for
who knows how long 
how his teeth had worked  
gnashing it's form 
& how now it lay outside
of him 
a shed organ
it made me wish
i had gum to spit out 
& add to the ground there
there's something intimate 
about gum 

i imagine all the dots 
of trampled gum moving together
into one big hunk 
i don't know why i see it
but i do
a great huge mound 
in the parking lot
the kind of thing kids
might try to climb on 
getting their shoes stuck 
& leaving them behind
a collage of abandoned shoes
i would climb it early
in the morning when 
there'd be less people 
to see me doing it

my first boyfriend
once passed a piece of 
his gum into my mouth 
when we were kissing
i was disgusted at first
but i chewed it &
the gum still had
an orange tropical flavor
he didn't mention it ever
just an action
& we kept kissing till 
i passed it back

it's something like that
what i witness each day 
pressed into the ground 
a kind of closeness 
of our bodies 
a kind of need for chewing
it's about mouths i think
i walk over the wads of gum
& feel them vaguely 
under my running shoes