Washing away the salt
of an afternoon
he found me in the cellar
hugging wool to split
gravestone. I blinked
the dust out of sight
and sighed as thirty
years of soap caked
my hands. He wants
to know if I’ll wake up
without fingerprints
for the rest of the evening
or (wrench the dead
skin from my feet)
give my tender
soles to the wood
that carpets the path
back. Let me bite
on sandpaper instead
and grind these teeth
to pearl. My grandmother
sighed the same way
from the ice box
plating a breath of gas
as she swelled up
water in the brain.
I know he breathes
the death of the summer
and when the marble breaks
he can tumble with me
low into the lake at night
where we’ll rest at the bottom
gazing up at the soft ghastly moon.
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