alone, i digest the remnants
of our last meal together:
spring chicken stripped bare,
pale as winter. sentiment
shapes itself into leftover
shards, no longer meaty.

last night we roasted the
wish in the heat between
our mouths, bent over the
clavicle and cleaved it in two.
a perfect half, you said,
then reached first anyway.

even as my hands begin to
hiccup the bones spill smoothly,
a belated warning: wing angled
south, rib upside down. neck
arched away from your side
of the bed, already cooling.