Before we undressed, we watched the evening news, a special about the girl
in New York City who jumped out the window of her high-rise apartment
as the sky deepened into pink ash, but didn’t look before leaving the sill
and fell onto a woman stargazing below her, the two of them plummeting
to the ground at the speed of light, no parachute, just a tangle of limbs
and dark red hair. Hair that made the horrified passersby below
certain they were seeing someone burning to death;
others swore the girl’s arms were spread out so far that she was
a mirror image of Jesus nailed to the cross.
The package of unused condoms in the bedside drawer
were ripped open, my dress unzipped. Being inside you was a kind
of drowning, a man slipping beneath the surface without a life jacket,
the waves pooling over my head again and again.
There was blood, dark red like the dead girl’s hair, and we ordered
pizza afterward. Sitting naked in bed, the city lights flickering
around us, moths burning themselves to death against
the apartment lamps, you said Falling in love with you
was like being tossed off a building: I landed face-first.
And just like the evening news,
there were two casualties.
