Shower

Two faces lit by candlelight
Speaking over food and drink
And drink, and drink, and drink’s insight

I’m the self I want to be
A city that’s not home
No other squirming around in me

Feel myself open up wide
Beautiful, you sit across
Out spills that story: I’m broken
In
Tale of loss of self I hide. (“You’ve been here before.”)
Getting drunker, edges blur
Look up, black sky:

“You are one mind creating night
Across from you is everyone
And of course you are going to die
And this will fade, but that’s alright
There’s no light but you will see:---”

---Smell of salt in air, of sea
Wakes me from my solipsistic, narcissistic reverie
Clinging to things I can't express
I suggest we leave
As they fade we walk up the street

We take a shower to cool off
Warm steam of bodies rises up
Away it floats, a person cloud
Right through the window

The smell of soap and hair
Rising above the city
Meshing with the dark air:
All the other human clouds, unanswered prayers

“Alive in your memory, living in the air
When you die is it still there?”