The Night I Took Benicio Del Toro to Bed

Christmas, 2007 / No. 19

This morning the bed is a giant wrinkle of white sheets,

and you’re still sleeping beside me, your black hair

is just as messed now as it was when we met,

and my mind is filled with jump-cuts of

you holding my arms, holding me against

the back of the hotel door with your foot firmly

planted between mine, and of me leaning

against the bar ordering a Scotch, neat, and of you

taking a long look at my cleavage and giving me a

perfect Sinatra smirk and, naturally, I give you my best

Ava Gardner arched brow, and on the street you

held my face in your hands and kissed me, and

the curve of your side just under the flat of your shoulder blade,

where my palm smoothed your skin, flashes through

my mind, and somewhere along the way, perhaps in the cab,

we discover we’re both born under the sign of Pisces,

and this seems to explain everything.