Twin Sized Fitted Sheets

I've decided
I want to be with you
long enough to figure out how to fold
those stupid fitted sheets.
Because as much as I do know,
I've never figured that one out.

I've also never been able to understand
the way your fingers,
tracing the curve of my jaw,
can make me lose all sense of language

I'd never appriciated the beauty cliches must have held,
but now that I know you
I want to paste them along the outline of your skin

rewrite them
so they fit just you
like those damn cornered sheets

Creased in a way so much easier
to breathe into your being
than to stack and hide
in a closet.

--

And maybe it's a good thing
to have two sets of sheets.
I can strip the mattress,
cover blue again
with brown maybe this time,
instead of red.

Though like this
only one set will ever smell
like you.

Only one set will hold
the memory of your hand on my waist,
your fingers tracing the curve of my jaw.

And if I have two sets
I have to fold fitted fabric.
Thin.
Flat.
Unobtrusive so it
will stay on the middle shelf of my closet
until the ones on my bed smell
too much like me and
not enough like you and
I have to unfold my two-handed handy work,

stretching elastic over corners
so that the only scents are unscented
detergent and week and a half old
dryer lint

--

So the next time I feel your fingers
tracing the curve of my jaw
I will laugh

because I know you still won't be here the next time
I'm folding fitted sheets,

and that's okay.

For now I have figured out
how to stack empty pillow cases in the lower corner
place flat
over fitted
and keep the shelf in my closet level

I will breathe rewritten cliches into your skin
and wait for a day
when we're folding our sheets together.