Night Along the Deck

Velvet black and
loomed
with
blue pine.
Pressed flat board
flat against the
concavity of my
child’s
back.
A plastic black
handheld wireless
pressed hotly
against
my sweaty ear.
Just to hear a
cadenced breath.
The void of all
force.

Window paned wrinkling
lights nearly
a few feet above.
The counting I’ve
done,
numbering the billowing and
hollowing in such expansive
huffs,
heaves.
On the line?

Just a glow, a line of
tears
depressed, beveling
along the back of my throat from gutter to
jaw-basin.

A fervor I can hardly
wait to
remember.  I
swore it off and
now I’m
back.  Afloat.
Plastered
against–
pressed through–
woven ‘twixt
Mars, two inches of
2×4 and
liquid on the
sterling side.

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