She’s an old hand.
By now, perched on the bedside table
she’s seen windowsills, hotel rooms,
felt the desperate clutch
between longing arms
and craving chest.

Chipped wooden frame
from the places she’s been.
The times I’ve picked her up,
placed her down with a kiss,
made her the first thing to fill an empty room.

She doesn’t argue with me,
and certainly never says the word “fine”.
After a long day she greets me
with that same stunning smile,
a fire that never needs stoking.

But when evening falls,
loneliness sneaks through
the crack of the door, crawls inside of me,
and dilutes me: two parts solitude
for every one part liberation.