Shotgun

Some days I might as well drive alone; you’d

spook if we crashed, but nothing less. Or else:

you spook at everything. On these days

I could ride toothless, hoodwild, skin leaking

from burst buttons; I could moan in Russian, smash

a gull through the windshield, eat my wrist with

hot sauce. You obey signage all the way

to the cliffs, where spray meets your sideburns like

a sentence. Look at that stone; how’s your hurt

toe; is that a pelican? I ask, ask.

I photograph my hand on your back, though

I haven’t a camera. The day’s touched down

its haunches. Without turning around, you

brush something unseen from your salted nape.

I’d Do

            for RL

We watch footage of your dead father

rooting for your football wins.

It is the second half of a Wednesday

and the old film makes everyone

into sticks of yellow and cobalt, though

your father’s hat is navy, his shirt tucked in.

You are eleven years old and goggled;

the back of your shining, brown-blond hair

puffs up from the elastic which keeps

your vision intact. You move through packs

of slower boys with the ball in your hands

and later I will lay the cold back

of mine inside yours like a teaspoon

surrendering to a tablespoon, and I will hear

your breath decelerate. We give our bodies

so little credit for keeping us alive. In the grey

light of your bedroom, I read the letters

of Cal and Elizabeth to your spine, the part

of you that hooks and doesn’t write.

They barely ever saw each other; one day

we too might stammer from afar. But for

today, what’s sunk is nothing but the sun

and asleep at last, you are the aquarium’s

tank leaking out to sea, the barely broken

son at last unbent in water’s arms.