of the first time you told me goodbye
over landlines when we were such children
and the morning seemed years away
how you warned me you wouldn’t last
the night and the promise
of my body wasn’t enough
to keep you but the next day
we made love on the floor
and I told you how hard it was
to know your body— a sinking boat a run-over deer’s ribcage
warm and expanding
slower with each step thick bass strings
roped into silent nooses
a small boy’s voice set to man’s music—
you told me it was easy
to want nothing
and feel it
told me this after you came
and I didn’t believe you
trusted an ocean
of dead fish
was still an ocean
trusted such a mouth
must want for me to swim
inside but desire
for another body
doesn’t mean love
for your own and if your desire
were that ocean
it’d be one of mouths gasping.