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Out of Context 
I want to be taken
like a whispered
rumor or a message
broken over water
by telegraph keys.
To be taken out
of this bed, its scrolled
masthead announcing
another decade together,
whole books written
around our words: Do you?
The cat. Mortgage.
Love, let’s lift
the words from our tongues
before they land
in the breakfast cereal,
the sink, on the rake’s
waiting handle, the pile
of rusting leaves. Take them
out, like the song says,
to the ballgame. Or scissor them
from their stories the way
kidnappers ransom
small words innocent in
and of themselves—if love
money now—spelling the end
of life as someone
once knew it. Think of the scenes
waiting to be spliced
from what’s left
on the cutting room floor,
the moments as yet
perfectly unfinished:
shadows splitting, a woman’s
hand reaching, a love cry
sliced in mid-gasp.
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