library ceiling high

he put the futon together
like reassembling limbs that had long forgotten to be body
you are my shoulders, he says
as I write a letter to my mother
who told me I am better off falling from the first floor
than from the tenth
that body crashing on hard surface makes loud thump
but a quick one
like bird chirp
or final moan

she sent me a poem that said a fish is a book
a book of water
a book that wants to be alive
it wants to breathe

and my body is my country by the way
take out the richness and leave for London
someday

it takes an effort to be an American, she tells me
in a logical, European way,
like muffling a sob

everyone’s forever is a little different, he says
tightening a remaining screw
with a post-coitus kind of smirk
like someone who would understand poetry
if it didn’t sag his muscles