a plastic penguin in one chubby fist a plastic dolphin in the other i’m gonna be everything she says to the penguin everything i'm going to be E V E R Y THING i know what I’m going to be she turns to the dolphin everything i try to remember back to when I had that primal conviction a thin cognition in a blue bathing suit squinting into the sun and wonder the ways in which the intervening 36 years will whittle my daughter down to the exact approximation of her grown self the tortuous route by which she will be shaved into a woman
Month: November 2021
from the series: dead men i have loved #3
you came around when i was four eating coffee beans by the handful from a bag that sat wedged against the armrest of your Chrysler Plymouth filterless camels caftan and headdress belly dancers on 35mm taped to the bedroom wall baklava and leather loafers my best friend once i walked across South Bend to ring the doorbell to your apartment i was six you were dying your hair you mixed sugar on a plate of tahini i ate it with my fingers like some sort of stray animal until my mom came and got me