The Office

This is the office of intimacy,

the den of my resignation.

Here we go again,

talking the labored tongue of love.

You are sitting in your straight back chair,

the leather paled by the movements your body makes

and I am here on the floor,

the rug rough against my knees as I kneel beside you.

How many times have we sat like this,

still as the dust on the oak desk

hiding in the corner beneath piles of papers,

the length of the sofa swaying toward us like a swallowing wave?

Your hand is in my hair, my face pressed into the taut,

black satin of your skirt and soon

I am going to have to stop myself from crying.

We are drifting together through this unknown ocean of sadness.

I have to steady myself.

My wrist locks into the loop of your arm.

Time passes so quickly now.

Outside, the sky darkens

and the stars bare themselves like bloodless teeth.

I have this idea that you are happier alone.

You won't want me to say this,

but haven't you swept the dark air,

cleared the slate of my memory?

All night I fear the patter of your heart

against the back of my hand will cease

and there will be no one left for me to love.

Maureen Daniels was raised in suburban California and fled to New York City as soon as she was old enough to buy her own cigarettes. She attended Hunter College where she studied English and Theatre with heavily medicated professors and graduated to become an aging lesbian hipster on the Upper West Side where she lives with her two teenage offspring and a Dalmatian named Pink. Her work has appeared in Modern Words, Paramour, Eidos, Nibble and other publications that you should go out and buy this instant.