Here we are again. I am holding half an acre of Michigan
in my left hand, the map in soft focus behind us.
You, you are Pacific headband & Ohio heartland,

touching Toledo to your chest like it wasn’t a place we’d ever said aloud.
In the attic, the bats are unfolding awake. Your look is fenceless:
coke bottle glasses, eyes wandering behind the rims

like tropical fish. I do not notice the short frets of your spine in this dream,
do not think to fingerprint your bedrock, do not feel the rumbling
of honeypot ants gathering crumbs down the length

of my torso, waiting for the shiver of our first winter together
to salt & pepper shakedown decades later, no. In this dream,
our knees bristle against the carpet stubble

& I do not notice the humidity hugging your top lip. Your smile
is broken, & the moons of my thumbnails slide
between the folds of the Midwest.