The Paisley Dress

he stands there in a brown three-piece suit. it smells like dry cleaner fluid. his chin points straight down the platform. teeth too white for the light. a plastic comb sits in his top pocket. hair slicked flat with heavy pomade. cold sores are blooming, three little bastards that decided to grow overnight. red. wet. impossible to hide.

she stands with him on the platform in a dress that looks like somebody ripped curtains off a dead grandmother’s house. paisley leaves crawl over it like poison ivy on a corpse. eyes big and stupid-happy. pastry crumbs stuck to her lips and down in the warm crease of her cleavage. same mullet as his. parted sideways. twins from some trailer-park womb that nobody talks about. sucking face like there are no tomorrows.

it starts quiet.

then teeth click, tongues fighting for air. him tasting sugar. coffee. the chemical tang of cheap mouthwash. in his fist a bunch of dying flowers from the corner Koreans. the price still hanging from wet cellophane. an Amtrak horn cuts through the station. New York to Boston. a heavy, metallic roar hits bricks and vanishes.

they keep kissing anyway.

the sores split open. blood mixes with her lipstick, clear fluid leaking into the creases.

I stand by the vending machine with a pastry and a coffee.

my train due in five minutes.

thirteen-dollar bunch
wild hedge bright open poppies
young lovers smiling