Marshall Mallicoat

New Haven

Your breath appears in winter, like a new pope
and the snow smells like your smoke.
You stutter like Roman numerals: I, I, I
and I touch you with gloves on.
We kiss like bridges half-­finished
in your parent's house on the sound.
The mirror is a perversion of the room
and in this perversion is your face,
your hair arranged in folios
with the pages yet uncut.
Your body is a grand concourse—
not just a terminus, but a place to depart from.
I'm drinking from the faucet of your mouth
not worried who has to drink after.