That's Not What Lovers Do

Suspicious eye contact on the tube

becomes a toast in a Waterloo pub;

a close walk through our streets

to your too-big for one twin bed.

Hollywood eye contact in the sun,

becomes a hostel hug and champagne:

a drunken misstep in the name of pain,

that’s not what lovers do.

He’ll name you things and pet you like

a piece of ornamentation, something

I could never pin you on the wall as.

So be it, be someone else’s pin-up.

I’ll be waiting for your fingers to slenderly

slip themselves into my ring: make you something

that’s mine. Poor fingers, never grasped

another’s back. You dig mine best, anyways.

While you’re away, tell me everything you do.

I know my eyes ought to be shut

but they’re glued against binoculars:

watching you.

What they see you do

they’ll know I agreed to.

That won’t keep them away

from my blue grey stormy eyes;

the torrents of vicious self-pitying floods

I’ll unleash if he gets to put you on his wall.

Just wait for me

instead

I’ll put you to bed.

-Grant Durando