Play “Stay With Me Baby” Again

by Christopher Barnes

You cannot look away
Even though the festivities mutter arrivederci at midnight,
A semitone rustle wriggles through metallic trees,
And linnets huddle on the transmission aerial.

Your eyes keep finding mine,
When halogen bulbs twinkle plastic chairs,
The sheen reflecting, absorbed
Into a velvet poncho.

I am in your reins every time I gaze
Beyond lassos of ashy exhalations,
Breweries on the horizon, black-skinned glass
And the moon’s dazzling glance.

And then the stuck-out tongue,
Sensuous as Wilde, the furore of tornadoes,
Condoms and lube, bites and fever-breath.
On the ice-white paint of the wall
Our shadows skate on gay blades.