“18 Down. 2024, in Chinese zodiac”

in the year of the dragon we achieve excellence
at falling asleep on the phone.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀we release a double-platinum album
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀feat. the dog’s verklempt whine at dinner, our roommates’ tv,
the endless ever-loving rain.
these days, one or other of our cities is always flooding.
a year’s worth of rain falls in a weekend
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀and we go on fossicking for glimmers of hope.
when i say the cars are up to their ears in water,
you ask if a car’s ears are the wheels
or the side mirrors
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀and tell me that drowning is the primary cause of death
in children under 5.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀someday we’ll stop calling the storms unseasonable.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀for now, we parrot x weeks is really not that far off—
where x equals however long til we’re again ears deep in the crossword
of some local rag, trading pickle-jar swigs, kisses brackish
and divine
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀(sickly when you aren’t here and i need to know
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀how long an olympic swimming pool actually is)
i hear the only way to eat an elephant is one bite at a time.
i hear patience—hell, baby, make it now.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀send a tempest to flush me down to georgia,
make the eastern seaboard just ocean glossy and smooth,
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀nine and a half times diana nyad’s crawl to cuba
say it’s really not that far. say you’ll be right over—and i’ll wait,
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀lodestar in green on the bank of the fleuve-st-laurent,
watching you swim back arm over arm over arm.