So he tells me about this girl,
   the way she'll sit with him
   on the couch
   when both
   of them think there's nothing on TV, hands
   held tightly, and then says that he wanted the other

   pair of pliers. He's trying to fix an old TV: another
   one of his projects that his girl
   doesn't understand. He holds out his hand
   and I give him
   the pliers. They both,
   he says, prefer her couch.

   Leather and old, her couch
   comes from another
   generation: they both
   like how it smells. The girl,
   he continues, always lets him
   speak first, with his hands.

   Her hands
   touch him, but she prefers to couch
   her love for him
   in songs sung by another.
   He listens to the girl,
   I suspect, because she speaks for them both.

   Once she's spoken, they both
   fall silent. His agreement hands
   her a memory: the girl
   will remember the couch's
   spots and springs and no other
   details when she thinks of him.

   He won't ever know what she thinks of him:
   a few days from now, he'll both
   love another
   woman and wash his hands
   of the girl
   and of her couch.

   But he will remember the girl with his hands,
   with one, with the other, then both,
   tracing her form on an otherwise empty couch.