and you used to be The Richard Bey Show
and my sister’s spaghetti. Under a friar plum tree,
a simplified reading of “The Argonautica.”
You kept me full and entertained. I was that kind
of round child. Gorging on what was left over.
I didn’t want a real burden, my own ship or story.
I didn’t want to go on ahead. I didn’t want to
have to reverse into you. Into your apparatus.
I never wanted nostalgia. We used to know each other,
remember? Dry. Humid. Dry. Humid.
Not. Humid. Dry. Humid. Dry. Humid. Dry.
Why did we have to pry open our patch of dirt?
Why couldn’t you always be acid wash
or those I CAN’T DRIVE 55 posters at the swap meet
or sunglasses. I never wanted to lay questions around
you. What if he takes another this year? What if
he’s difficult to talk my way out of? What if he eats me
only half-alive? What if all he is in his beach bum
orange is ghosts clothespinned to the laundry line?
Copyright © 2023 by Gustavo Hernandez. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on March 8, 2023, by the Academy of American Poets.