On the train through Mystic there’s a pair of spotlit smokestacks beaming up
from a plot of industrial night water
so obsidian then white along the shore: two turbid columns of ice. I consider you
making the call but it’s the quiet car.
In the absence of context there are some things I can always trust
you with—your answer to everything else is
just time. Ask what kind of time, and like always you say there’s no reason
to talk this way
and I know one day we’ll argue for the last time
about my mouth
this nuisance, elemental, obstructive: the fact that one day we’ll die
flab and vein, maybe, bent mattress or firestorm
and you’ll be the sulfuric breath unfolding, and I’ll be there still
in your arms, arms, arms.
