My friends think you look like a rat:
I recall the hour-long lecture on
the shifting of tectonic plates
in coastal California.
Your eyes flick guiltily over mine:
the dark night, a terminal: the tale
of two cities that never were.
I laugh in the dust storm laugh
until you tell me to shut up
and I sleep, dreaming:
of you vanishing in the fog
and your hand in my hair.