That's when I tell you, Annie,
that you dream of submarines –
when I feel your small and sudden warmth
curled in the crook of my sleep-heavy arm.
The monstrous bacilli
and eyeless mouthless sharks
are your fingertips
extended into darkness, brushing
fairy-lighted ctenophores
and gape-jawed eels
and snake-legged octopodes.
Your nightmares are adventurers
I tell you, and I watch your breathing
deep and even as the waves.

Across the room, a speechifying man
Digresses, bibulous and red and fat
And blooming loud. I pinch my glass; I can
Feel nothing but my trembling knee, since that

Is where your hand is resting. You transmit
Intolerable heat. The wine is warm
And I am growing volatile; I sit
As one expecting fire, or a swarm

A plague of fevered locusts to consume
The whole damned company, and leave us two
alone. And I am furious – the room
is full of nonsense noise – I would subdue

Myself with wine, but I am drunk; the stain
Comes tearing through the tablecloth like flame.