lake washington

Lately, lust is a drought in my skin.

The way the ground buckles in the dry
forms the kind of Sahara cracks that

wedding rings roll down to pawnshop shelves.

In summer, the heat is a closet monster that keeps me outside.
My neck hits adolescence, growing wiser than his scarves by the day,
living out of the bag that’s been packed and in the trunk since Winter
looked like he was moving in with mom, and I am marooned by my desire.  

If there’s one thing I learned in school, 

it’s summer is the season for forgetting.  

Swimming, I forgot desks, 

traveling, I forgot home,
and this vacation still makes me forget my history,
especially on the beach, where a sturdy handrail and plaque
would almost make a good zoo.
My neck spends all his money on gas to get here,
because here, I want to do and not remember,
and it is summer.

This time of year, in the Sahara, herds live leaving.
I imagine I might have a rhinoceros on each arm, and a pack 

of giraffes on my back. The gazelles’ migration impresses wings 

into my legs: all of them swirling,
beating out their basest angst for survival, 

for fear of the lions resting in the shade of my mouth, 

always a sentence away 

from preying on the weak.

How can my neck be so naïve,

that girls in summer have faces,
that my voice box is slave to his bedridden angst,
that I speak with the tongues of lions?

How did I forget my face, 

become so hopelessly reckless,
when beneath the ground,

I am an empty wallet.
I am backpack of dirty clothes.