The gin and tonic on your breath –
so much is lost
to evaporation, translation, replication, the movie version:

these processes that occur only on the surface of a body.

There are cycles we control and those we cannot. Sounds
we make and sounds no one will ever make again.

It’s goddamn hard just to talk to each other
some days. To say
only what you want, to give voice to desire: it seems the most basic

purpose of language. Yet it is the thing that escapes,
the warm air that rises.

Seven thousand tongues in the world and all I can think about is yours.