at any break / I knew

I invoked the dictionary’s authority--Incidental to Incompatible,
Juvenile Hormone to Kangaroo, Keeper to Ketchup,
Plain People to Planned Parenthood, Yokel to Yuck--
then segued into ingredients from a cereal box side panel,
the noble gases: helium, neon. When I forgot my own chemistry,
I rattled off one page of the phone book, Smith to Smith,
then argued against drilling for oil in the Arctic,
then shut my eyes to describe the windshield’s panopticon from memory,
then opened them and fugued lyrically on ocean reeds--
all so he’d lose interest, wander off--I recited Woolf’s last letter,
floundered through Hamlet’s To be or not to be, mustered
synonyms for alone, insulated, aloof, because at any break
I knew there’d be the hand over my mouth.
There’d be his mouth.
[Courtney Queeney, 'Filibuster to Delay a Kiss']