the night I talked you out of suicide
we both knew you were not going to use suicide
and when we finally hugged
it was morning already, it was dull boats
swaying along the canals
turbid bottle green oily waters of the white
sunned peaks

it was you crying on my shoulder, suicide
unused left on the curb,
barges mooing behind the banks
someone calling someone in the court
stirring hurtled sparrows and it was I,

as cold inside as the blade of the
IKEA kitchen knife I had to hide from you.

I wonder why I didn't
laugh at your phony face
then, as I averted you from the balcony,
wasn't in my mind the exhausted
cozy lie of our barren place?

I pictured your tongued mouth instead,
I tightened my tired embrace, I
shaped your sexy grimace,
    as in blowjobs.

That was the barter.

It took me two more years to leave you,
and still today you call me,
offering blowjobs between the lines.