Near Sonnet For S | Kimberly Ann Southwick

at where i work i know a girl who slurs
her words the way you would—but not the way
when you were drunk and loud, would sway
still tall, balconied, your sentences blurred.
no, not watered—slow—sinking, but laughter
sure, close-confident, talking nights away
in your Christmas-lit room. bedded, we lay
close side by side, wrist brushed against finger.
i loved you once and there in that soft hush;
then her: ladder-perched, her voice a blush.