THE POETRY OF SWEAT

that night, you called me up/ it was quite late/ you wanted to come over and sleep with me/ i can’t have sex with you tonight, i said/ i am exhausted/ you swore you just wanted to sleep with someone so you were not alone with your various demons/ it was not about the sex/ after you arrived, we stumbled back to bed/

the one you soaked/ in sweat/

soon after that, i took your photograph because it’s what i do/ you were sweating then as well/

i used to believe that it could happen to anyone because it can/ believing it and believing it are two very different things/ i never really believed it would find you/ but it did, and from that moment on there would be rivers of your sweat, and convulsive seas of it upon which entire armadas sailed quickly as to avoid the pirates/ every night you sweat and sweat/ wild waves crashing up against us/ my bed, your ships of theseus hitting rocks upon the cartilage that was the shore/ contains the shadows of our tombs, and all my poems of war/