Ali Shapiro: The Meaning Of Leaving

Maybe it was there
all along, in our shirtsleeves,
on the heavy trees, every time we turned
left—as in the opposite
of right, which is also
wrong, as in the mistakes
I’m bound to keep making as long
as I long. I still love you but I can’t
stay still, that’s why I’m bound
for the coast in the old
truck blazoned with rust, crest
of snow, crust of salt, the bed
that was our bed, you
in the rearview for hundreds
then thousands of miles—you
the cornfield, you the semi, you
the sirens pulling me over
and over. I’ve got my eyes
on the road’s gray throat, its soft
shoulder, its sign that says
yield. Maybe I was here
all along, driving away in the driving
rain, in the space between left
meaning remaining and left
meaning already gone.

Ali Shapiro: I Keep Trying to Leave but the Sex Just Gets Better and Better

This is not what the door’s for—slamming
you up against, opening
your legs with my knee. And it isn’t
leaving, the thing I keep doing
with my shoes still on, or in the car
in the driveway in broad
daylight after waving
goodbye to your neighbors
again. But my body’s a bad
dog, all dumb tongue
and hunger, down
on all fours again, tied up
outside again, coming
when called but then always refusing
to stay. I know what I’m trying
to say, but it isn’t
talking, the thing that I do with my mouth
to your ear, even though
we got the orifices right. To leave
I would have to put clothes on,
and they’d have to fit better
than all of this skin. To leave
I would have to know where to begin:
like this, pressed up
against the half-open window? Like
this, with my foot on the gas? If seeing
is believing then why isn’t touching
knowing for sure? I just want my nerves
to do the work for me, I don’t want
to have to decide. There’s blood in my hands
for fight and blood in my legs
for flight and nowhere
a sign. Believe me, I’ll leave if you just
let me touch you again for the last
last time.