if I haven’t heard that before
from you,
you and your toy boat
lodged in the sink
I need to get out of this square
we built for feelings:
two floodlights pouring
into the sky
a text message, a supernova
or maybe a satellite,
the world or maybe
an avocado husk
I dropped my ring
beside your bed in the dark
you looked for it
and said, oh no another poem
How to Enforce Boundaries with Physical Geography
you packed condoms
forgot underwear
pulled your cock out
in the hotel hallway
and later wrote
to say you admire
my emotional vulnerability
Rebecca described you
as wiggly in the face
of seeing too much
uncertainty, she said
I see it too but somehow
manage to pluck
a way forward
and then there’s the way
you remember everything
I’ve ever said, how you
register every gesture
I wonder if you remember
all the things you say
when we’re fucking
Rebecca served me honey
cake for the Jewish New Year
in between my train
from Toronto to Montreal
and flight to Vancouver
my ideal is to touch
all three simultaneously
but it’s Montreal
whose fever brushes
my cheeks, whose arms
hold me while I shake
in my skull
I left Sara and her black
cat in Toronto that morning
her mother worried
about her daughter’s
indecision over which dish
to make for Rosh Hashanah
autumn knocks a dent
into her depression
that winter packs with ice
I’ve written to you like this
before, I had forgotten
some of the awful
moments like how
my anger turned you on,
the radius of your
free fall
you seem kinder now
age humbles as it dulls
we left the hotel
in the late afternoon
and I could feel a sweetness
rising in you, some sort of
flag unfurled
you ask for my favourite
Emily Dickinson poem
it’s the one with mermaids
where the sea trespasses
her belt and bodice
she feels his silver heel
at her ankle
before withdrawing
he gives her a mighty look
I hope your students
like Emily Dickinson
I’m afraid of what days
actually look like
with you
not these nights
where we dive
into morning
I will say
the sweetness
felt hard
and earned
Burn It All Down with Water
I’d like to float on okay
but then I read about
the singer from Modest Mouse
I like to joke the upside
of an abusive father
is it teaches the absurd
tethers of obligation
love sometimes dwells
with violence, even though
that isn’t really love
which is what Irene told me
when I was twenty-six
a
