Before Everything

_ Her bra flies - and this - is how I want to love - God
however you spell her - sixteen, that's a fact - we meet

in a room in my basement - six -thirty a.m. - before tall
hallways swallow us in the name of mathematics - biology -

history - her shoulder blade, this - is math - her
laughter rippling the windows, biology - meeting

as the sun quakes in its infinite hall, this - history -
and English, how my mouth knows to quake - is when

my father opens the door - his face, an apology of perfect
doves, how he closes it again - lets us be, before everything

decides against us.

--SHIRA ERLICHMAN