Asbestos Summer

A girl with a boy's name

A boy with a child's entitlement

A girl no older than a child, clinging to me like drywall

I feel the roles’ potential to reverse and I bite down hard on the past to stop it from turning all the way

That ouroboros, that ringlet spiral

A girl I think I might want, I might have

As if that could ever be within a realm of possibility

As if I do not lie on other people's beds and dream of her only

A salty outline in the mattress with enough space left for two

I envy their muscles as we sweat together, taut and dangerous as bowstring

I play the angles and get too good at meaningless games

The click of the balls sinking one by one like my days

I go to the lake for seaweed-stink respite after breathing in sex and spit and sadness of 50 years

When I exhale in relief it comes right back out of me.