The Heating Bill

I keep the heat cranked and gladly pay the bills.  I love the way the roses I bought myself this week are already weeping over their glass vase.  Their stems turn to rubber.  I feed them crushed aspirin dust and pick off their leaves but they stay soft and bent.  I think they look lovely that way.  Visitors ask why I don’t toss them away, then politely ask if we can lower the temperature.  I’m wrapped in down and flannel and goosebumps.  They flick sweat beads from their wrists and sneak stares at the thermostat.  I love the music that bubbles up from the baseboards.  The banging and clinking of pipes and rushing water.  The way the windows fog and the cool wet dew that I trail my fingertips through while I scrawl seven-word poems onto the glass.  Without you, there is only my breath. 

Loved ones don’t stay long when they come around.  They are smoked out, drawn to the cold air seeping in through the cracks between the door and the walls.  They kiss my cheeks and I feel them like fever.  I long for it to last.  My lips touch their skin, blue and icy.  They’re always surprised and then, I’m left alone.  But alone isn’t lonely.  I have my radiator percussion and my sleepy floral bunches.  My poetry on the windowpane.  And if the world wants to know what I see, they must only learn to read backwards.