I am rinsing mango juice off my / thighs when I notice its slim // body shimmying before me, / slicing through the crisp, // chlorinated water with ease.
An idea so fleeting it’s mere outline, dim constellation. / I think of abducting you— // a consideration as gentle and banal as what fruit to buy / for the week. It’s really only the word that compels, // abduct, abducere, to lead away as if by the hand, lovingly.
1. My body was colonized / in a language of silence. / Strands of my hair entrapped the ghosts
in the wind, / they were not held prisoner / but the abrasions kept them warm—or stuck.
The notes in the air are awakening, deep
in thought, and a little cold, probably
stretching just before the declaration
emerging from the bell of the clarinet that the boy