We Are Older; We Float, We Sink, We Sleep When We Can
I’m nearly thirty and capable of commanding my body
inside a vehicle. The car and I, we go places together.
I drive south and then west, four hours plus one coffee
stop, to see Scott and his brand new baby. We meet
at a French cafe with “vintage gas station” as its theme.
The baby is strapped away against his chest, silent
and unseeable. We drink white wine and eat Frenchly
-titled meals by the window. Scott covers the baby’s head
with a napkin while he eats, which I both notice
and don’t notice. He is exhausted & he is a father
& I’m so proud of him. He looks natural with a baby.
He looks like someone related to me. Maybe this is why
I love him, or maybe it’s his excellent taste
in wall clocks, or the sandy fields & shifting days
we survived together in laughter. His husband is away
that day, working in the city. When he arrives home,
his face is nearly yellow from exhaustion. I want to feed
them both: applesauce, keffir lime leaves, matzoh ball soup.
At Scott’s birthday dinner party the next evening, there is wine,
deeply chocolate cake, and lentil soup with a pad of floating butter
on top like the raft we each contain inside us, each of us
the fat, the proteins, the flavor, the impending melt.
panache, perhaps 