My lover
hiccuped as we wrestled across the room,
repeatedly,
until I was forced to ask them
“Was it the bacon, or the salami,
that set you off so?
They told me neither,
that it was something
one of the kids they taught had told them –
Elijah or Joshua or Isaiah or Jesus –
great change was coming,
we should be ready for it.
But they had forgotten to ask what “it” was,
or what needed changing,
and so, the hiccups.
Not that it mattered.
“It’s just nerves”, they told me, “just nerves”
And so I kissed them, right then and there on the floor,
biting hard on their lip to surprise them,
stop the hiccups,
and taste the blood.
Writer Moe 