in the cloudy backwater between
my voice, yours, and the close contours of
my father’s bathroom tile; my voice, the tile
as those things clean and correct, things
to cling to, swimming (still
as my father’s face as my mother
wept in a brand-new bed, with you and me
asleep an ocean away) in words like
acid bath for us both, calcining
gullies along my throat and gushing
torrents of stagnant debris out over
the clean of the tile, yet still:
you are the color of
dust motes floating
over the seine on
sunday morning, the
silvery sound
of rocks skipping.
you merely ask
if you can ever see
me again — as if
the algae oozing
down my chin could
pool into a fountain
to dip our feet in;
a cool, clean river
to swim, still.