by Zachary Warble
I stand in the shower & turn the water down
& down
& down
until the flesh rises but then gives in.
I think back to being young in a bath
waiting for the bubbles to subside & form
a little waterspider film across the top;
I think about moving the patches around
like herds of pearlescent sheep & later
how I’d divide & unite shifting continents
that would stick to my hands
pulling away the shorelines
as they left the soapy water.
I stand in the shower now
as a man in the driving rain w/ a
repeating rifle wrapped in rawhide &
lashed to my back
nothing to kill or save
lost & looking for a little boy
next to the cliffs of a sucking ocean.