Debtor's Prison

A song on the radio, a water bed in winter,

he taught your mouth to shape a kiss,

patiently, suck a bottom lip, bite, his

lessons linger in fingertips, the power

of a drawn map on skin, your body

knows how to bend and twist around

a stickshift , your mouth knows how

to scream without sound, you're killer

at keeping secrets. He showed you how

to unbutton jeans with teeth, but you never

quite got the trick, or returned some formative

favors, firsts that should have been yours

to wrap around him and swallow. You should

have scrawled I was here in spit on the inside

of his thigh, invisible ink. You should have

marked that territory like a conquistador,

mounted him like an equestrian, left no

what-ifs in your wake. What if he had tasted

like a seashell, what if it felt good inside you,

what if you hadn't always been afraid.