I want to go to California, baby,
and write you a song in aggressive fires
that threaten every building around us,
and I want you to teach me like you can
to dance and say words with my body in the sand
and I want to be a boy bent over a guitar
adoring you each time I question the strings I touch
as though they are you and the inside of your thighs
and those silly moments of your hilarious forgiveness
of me when I break the rules of caressing
and spill over into just the two of us being this unheard-of thing,
a wild union of flowers and stupidity,
and I want to pull your hair while we challenge the harbor boats
way away from here in New Orleans,
where you look at me in the kitchen
and tell me Thank You for washing the whites
and you tell me I am beautiful on the days, most days,
when I don’t feel it and border on apology for who I am
as though you didn’t marry the former version,
already,
years ago,
when you told me to stop thinking of dolphins
but wanted me never to end the labor toward
a song I keep trying to sing.

Damon Marbut