for M

1.

who conceived that ravine
         or
         the contour
         of those slopes

Torbay
                —washing
over 
          him as he swims—

is trying to say
                            don’t let 
                                             the barber
                                    shave 
                        below 
his collar


2.

I love
breathing
him in

my fingers
raking
his chest

a cub
wanders
the forest
                        after Andrés Montoya & Francisco X. Alarcón

Copyright © 2018 by Francisco Aragón. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on December 29, 2018, by the Academy of American Poets.