On that February Sunday, the sun lifted her shawl,
casting shadows from every rooftop
to flicker in the reflections of our polished guitars.
Into her warmth we ran -
the taste of watered-down ginsing
flavored our tongues.

The sky licked away the snow with his tongue
and spread his woven shawl
tie-dyed white and blue like Ginseng
ice tea bottles shaped like smokestacks shooting fumes off factory rooftops.
Down my spine ran
his fingers, plucking my body, "shaped like a Spanish guitar,

and guitars,"
he said, "are shaped like goddesses of every tongue."
His guitar blues chased me and I ran.
Sunday seeped under my blue shawl
and blew through me up past rooftops,
where neo-beatniks used to climb, quoting Ginsberg's

"Howl," sipping their vials of ginseng,
strumming their acoustic guitars.
He led me over chairstacks, under windowsills to that rooftop,
where before, his ear's probing tongue
would find guitar licks, as he sat on a shawl
of gravel, his fingers running

over the six strings. Maybe we could run
away together, just us, a couple of Arizona ginsings,
and the whole world would spread its shawl.
Who would've guessed I'd fall for a guitarist
who'd teach me to listen, whose kiss would have me tongue-
tied, while he'd serenade me atop a roof.

And from that rooftop,
with eyes of running
saltwater, I felt the sun retract his warm tongues,
we drained the blue bottles of all their ginseng,
and over our shoulders we propped our guitars,
covering their wooden skin with cloth shawls.

We crawled down the slanted roof gingerly,
the two of us like a pair of guitars,
as nightime cloaked the sky with her darkest shawl.