From Salut
On a Thursday night in December I pour all of the dish soap and all of the hand soap and all of the laundry detergent into our bathtub and I put all of my shoes and socks and boots and pants and underwear inside and I turn on the water and get in and sit and drink cold duck from the bottle.
And I don’t think about how small the ventilator is and I don’t think about movies or television or the snow or the red and white of the bag.
I don’t think about work in the morning or college basketball or whether or not I could have swam at Fort Lauderdale had I not smoked so much in high school.
I don’t think about the spathe and the spadix,
I don’t think about the computer.
Instead, my mind is in the basement den of a dormitory with you
27 days older than me,
and my fumbling hand drowning in your hair.
Months later on an island that was once a prison,
I’m playing Belote at a stone table, watching the France 24 news on mute.
Someone’s tried to kill Putin.
But in my mind,
it’s still just my clumsy hand-
pinning you down by accident-
and your arched back
making the bridge in the dark.
when you tried to tell me
about the hair,
I heard,
“You’re my hero.”
by mistake.
