mercurio's shadyside margherita pizza

A wood-fired margherita pizza with charred crust and basil, in a takeout box from Mercurio's on red-and-white checkered paper

the second i turned away from you,
the water started to slowly sizzle, &
before i knew it, it started to boil the way my heart pounded.

for four days, we floured together through
the movies we watched late at night, playing
the game where we have to make 24.

i saw the white handprints placed on my shoulder of
my plain old black t-shirt like i was back at my
father's liquor store painting the wall white &
i promised to myself i wouldn't wash it.

the color of the tomato sauce in margherita,
the redness of the fire burning, i felt like your favorite color.
we decided to save it for later cause we both hated loud places,
knowing that it would go soft, soggy. but we still enjoyed it
amid the green fields, under the blue sky.

how we still ate it cold, how you kept looking up,
how i came to realize that your favorite color was that blue late,
how you knotted me a bracelet with a red yarn, with yellow, green,
and pink beads, & you left out the blue one.