fur coat

you put on the dead staircase 
when we would go into the beast.
the city without a nose. opera masks 
fell from the sky. i told you i was 
a grandmother & you laughed & said
you were too. all our little children 
were the stoplights that made 
the neighborhood's choker. read poetry
to an empty bar. in the street everyone
was deciding to be an alley cat. everyone
was eating a handful of peanuts 
& calling it grace. you wrapped your
fur coat around your shoulders.
my beautiful animal, we should have 
gone home so much sooner. the night 
grew all the legs we said we didn't want.
centipede or street hound. the boys 
who put their teeth in their pockets 
in case a fist came to make keyboards
of their smiles. this was back when 
headphones still had cords. 
you took one bud & me the other.
put little men inside each seed 
& listened to them play their violins.
car sick in the rain slick street. take me home 
in your pocket. tell me what creature
we are stolen from & take me back there.
i crave a marsupial ending for this evening.
one where i eat my fill of bread 
& get to finally turn into a flashlight.
i forget if we kissed. if we did 
i hope it tasted like licorice. i hope the fur
purred & laughed. you took off your shoes
as if they were traitors. i searched 
my pockets for all the pieces of my face. 
one eye, still at the train station. 
i still have not gone back to get it.
a man bites into it like an apple. i see everything.