Renate

 Bathtub Ophelia drowns with her friends around her, placing the flowers and holding up her hair to make it just right. 

Hamlet says I did love thee once and we continue to read, ignoring the girl with her dress to be fixed.

I get up in the morning, waking at the light, puts on her slip, her robe and her ring. 

Every time I run into him, my friend, my lieutenant, we caress one another with love. He makes pancakes and omelets and cocktails again and again. We smoke together and we kiss. 

Her eyes caress me with longing every time she sees me, and I pretend I do not see. 

We dance and I let her lead, I lean into her movements and I don't even know at what point we start kissing. Her hands on the back of my head, her body pressed against mine.

Last Call for the Lifeboats

I can tell by the gentle slope of the hallway

as I wade on through leftover luggage

and by the way the fluorescent lights

unignite

I'm just a little fool

I've got no head for physics or for maths

I've lived my life for pretty lights

glasses of effervescent wines

minor crimes

of the heart.

It's not my area of expertise

but this near to the closing of it all

even I can tell our ship is sinking.

Go to, unblinking. Hike up your skirts of cobwebbed silks 

and carry on. Here, the stairs.

The rushing of the ocean

cannot overtake

the memories of dancing

just a little while ago.

I know where the exits are

I can even swim. I won't. 

This is the closing of the ball.

The last call.

There's no one waiting on the shore.

The lifeboats have already left.

Yet, I've got an itch

a pinprick of a thought

that if I get to the deck up top

the stars will still be smiling high above.

she her I him them us

Fragment, 2024. 1986.

Seal

 I dipped my toe into the water, 

and it was still delicious. 

Selkie-fat and full of happiness, 

sliding,

I bit down, 

and my mouth filled with the sweetness,

of another's sweat.