what thirteen wants

Thirteen wants a whole floor to herself

          not to be avoided by skyscrapers

     (she is not simply

     a place to store cleaning products

     and a floor for extra linens.)

She is not a placeholder—

she is the place

and the held.

She is to be beheld and is beholden to nothing but beauty.

She wants the good champagne

the pop the sizzle the flurry the chuckle

the gurgle the staccato ascension of pitches in a flute being filled

with a flight of bubbles that leads

to somebody’s tongue

          not another broken promise

          nor an empty prophecy from some mortal with a god-complex

Thirteen doesn’t want her first guest to be annoying

nor her first phone call to be from a bill collector.

She wants the wettest kisses

and the most deliberate touches

There.

There-there.

Again, this time: deeper

and in circular motions.

Thirteen wants to be touched with verve.

She has given away everything and the nothing that is left will be filled with light.

Thirteen realizes that age is not a resignation

     that joy is always an option

     that a smile is just a mouth’s turn away

     that there will always be another everything

     that laughter photographs well

     that silence is the possibility of all music

perhaps Thirteen will recline for a while

swaddled in last year’s blanket

but crisp air will envigorate her

as soon as she opens the door

to check for mail

and she’ll be alive

again

~ Vince Wilson @invincewil

foto: thirteen birds by James Bo Insogna