Dos Corazones

Morning shines into the matchbox of your studio apartment. 

Exhaust fumes and car horns and traces of Spanish
shout through the blinds.
I am empty beside you.
So is your pack of cigarettes on the nightstand.
You only acknowledge the smokes,
make a quick run across the street,
return with a fresh pack of Lucky Strikes.

For some reason, you decide you aren’t speaking this morning,
so I don’t either.
Sitting up in your bed, I watch
as public protests rage on the TV.
Out of the corner of my eye, you
pull a mini chocolate bar out of your pocket;
open the golden wrapper,
expose two square nuggets with a heart
embossed on the top of each.
You break it in half,
hold a piece out for me.
“Tomá.” (“Take it,”)
you say.  
When I accept,
you toss your portion onto the table,
tear the plastic off the cigarette pack with your teeth.

I place the square on my tongue
the heart facing down.
It is a branding iron.
The burlap skin of my back still burns with
the square grids of bathroom floor tiles
from last night’s drunken fuck.
How did I end up returning to you?
Again?
These Venn diagrammed hearts
arm wrestle in my chest:
the backhand of my heart that knows better
is dangerously close to touching down.
Public protests on the TV
make courage look so easy.
I search for affection in the blue life preservers of your irises.
You tell me to get up so you can make the bed.
You are both a good joke and a bad one,
admirable for your honestly and despicable for your selfishness.
You are both an architect and a wrecking ball.
I am both rebuilding and carving a pair of initials into the rubble.

These Venn diagrammed hearts!
On one side, there is a broken window with a hole
shaped like a woman jumping;
on the other, there is a jumping woman with a hole
shaped like a broken window;
in the middle is a woman,
double bolting the locks of her shudder-
frame lips.

Wrapped up in your crimson robe,
in your matchbox apartment,
I hear shouting.
Don’t you?
Don’t you hear it?