NY, U?

all bruised
giddy on a rooftop
a photo of you cooking
shining pink by the barbecue
disposable
meat spitting
and your skin sings back
licks its lips
wipes tender ribs from your glasses
your own crack laughing
at a joke I can't hear

is it true you have other friends?
their names are new to me
I read them once
and then again
over and over until I thought they were mine too

in a dream we are all ripping meat from bone
throwing dead off the roof
waiting for the slap of flesh on concrete
and each fall is another face I found online

that contact
I can smell in your hair
all these other fingers through it
each strand I worked hard for
thought I'd wear around my neck
thought I'd hang from it
dangle like fresh
glistening sweat punching bag
from a building I'll never see

Eva Griffin is a poet living in Dublin and a UCD graduate. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in Tales From the Forest, All the Sins, ImageOut Write, Three Fates, This Is Not Where I Belong*, and The Ogham Stone. She is the former Visual Arts editor for HeadStuff.org.