She would gladly give up
her romantic ideas of solitude
for the assurance of
forever in his heartbeat
like a beach shell
where one can hear
the eternal rise and fall
of the sea.
She could get along with
mediocre poetry
so long as she could
be sad with him,
angry with him,
ecstatic with him.

Her idea of real love is tied in
with the ocean,
with blue, and bright, and smiling faces
caught up in another's lifting embrace
to fly two feet off the ground
and next to the moon.

“Someday, when we have our own house …”
she'll spend a naked day
or maybe two or three
stuck to you like the melted gummi bears
in the backseat of her mother's car
on a childhood summer day without air ­conditioning.

“Someday, when we have our own house …”
she'll spend hours upon minutes upon ­seconds under moments
looking at you with her fingers,
knowing your shape like a 3-D contour map
so that if she ever gets lost,
she can find her way back again.