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You can't get here
without lying. Whistle through
the slit between your
two front teeth. The
summer stays the same.
My young Spanish wife
bronzing along my left side,
resting on her right, pages
with a wet thumb
through my kept notes on
the end of her world.
I'm steady, though,
with one hand
on her hip-bone and a
beading bottle of white wine
between our outer thighs.
That’s sweat
and flesh, grapes and
sand all within
my reach. I’m feeling a little
drunk, imagining
ivory columns on the horizon
of our trumpeting
august beach;
an illusion I must
find a place for in some kind
of foreign story, to keep the
confession warm.
Our eager daughter
treads the low tide and
speaks too quickly.
El papá viene nada.
Little lady, just say daddy
and I’ll fetch a strawberry cone.
I want to feel it melt on my leg.
Dorota,
wipe your chin and sit
by your sleeping mother; you’re
standing in my
light.