Sometimes, when you and I are sitting
at the breakfast table, drinking coffee
and eating toast with strawberry preserves,
I am struck with the sudden and irrational terror
that an alien might claw through your sternum
and burst shrieking from the pale valley
between your breasts.
I imagine the scene in slow-motion:
your head flails back, mouth agape
in a soundless O, your slender fingers
fluttering on the table. Breakfast scatters.
Strawberry viscera splatters my cheek.
Your chest and my mouth are screaming.
You comment, gently, that today is a pretty day,
which isn’t really what most people do when
extra-terrestials are wriggling out of their lungs,
but you never do predictable things and that
is part of what I love about you.
I watch too many movies, but you are still lovely
and I want to take you into the bedroom,
press my ear to your chest and listen to
the reassuringly singular beat of your heart.
