Neutral Territory

The microfiber is a gray desert.

You reached for the remote and the foam groaned,

a slow shifting of tectonic plates

that left us on our own separate continents.

There is a single white thread

spiraling out of the middle cushion,

right between your knee and my hip.

Neither of us has the heart to pull it.

We are experts at this kind of math,

measuring the air in inches and fractions,

staying just far enough away

that we don't have to apologize for existing.