MANGO SORBET

I carry shards of the same broken promise in my pocket

to rub against my clawing fingers and remind me

that breaking and entering is a crime;

Not a love scene.

When you said we’d wait until we were sure and in love

before allowing our lips to greet one another by touch,

I wanted to believe that this time the glued pieces would stay together,

because we would too.

But in the alley behind the ice cream shop,

when you leaned in for a lick of my mango sorbet

and caught my tongue instead,

I heard the sound of our promise fall to the ground:

And though my hands wanted to kneel down and grab it,

your own pinned me against the spray-painted wall

and touched every lump, crack,and vein in my body.

In my head, I pushed you off and searched for the pieces,

but when I opened my eyes to take a glimpse,

I saw my hands busy in your ruffled hair

and yours under my yellow t-shirt;

our bodies too taken aback by the sweetness satisfying our hunger

to notice the glass nibbling at our feet.