Thirty years on & still summer nights settle into
shared breaths. The moonlight dancing on your lips,
each syllable of air pregnant with want. Within these
naked walls, we are holy & that means selfish
& that means I confess I like my body more
when you’re inside it. This moving metronome rhythm.
These shipwrecked hands that found a home
holding yours. God, how we have whittled our lives
down to this: newspaper coffee. Feet massages
on the living room couch. Your pillowed touch
braiding me to sleep. There are nights too endless
with weary & you would harness me back to shore,
the flesh of your name percolating the tongue
like we are everywhere & tomorrow all at once.
Conan Tan (he/they) currently lives in Singapore and loves writing poems on grief, love, heartbreak and trauma. When he’s not writing, he’s probably curating Spotify playlists or rewatching The Good Place. Their poems have been published in, or are forthcoming at, SingPoWriMo and Eunoia Review.