We do it on nights when the stars hang low and heavy, ripe fruit in a black bowl of sky, nights when we’re so stoned we make bets about when the stars will fall on us. We’re always stoned, so what? The guy from Detroit is always the first to take off his pants, the last to jump in. Snakes, he says. Or eels. He swims head-out like a dog, coughs water, a pot smoker’s wet hack. Years from now the cops will find him in a car trunk, shot once through the head, the pound of cocaine he was carrying long gone. For years I’ll mouth-to-mouth him back to life, I’ll dream him awake. He floats face up forever in a stew of stars, a body at rest patiently waiting.
First published by New World Writing on 21 November 2021.
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