How far back do you want to go ?
the day you were born?
Do you want to snatch your father
off the Navy Carrier,
send him to Normandy instead?
Do you want to leave your mother in Mexico,
picking vanilla?
What about the backyard sycamore tree ?
do you want to machete its branches,
forbid it from ever cradling your legs
as they dangled?
Do you want to stop
me from leaving notes
on the Comet's windshield,
for going braless,
for letting you slide
your fingers inside,
those nights we parked
along the man-made lake
in Lafeniere Park?
How far back do you want to go ?
the day you were born?
Do you regret driving through Burger King,
ordering fries,
a strawberry milkshake,
agreeing to elope to Biloxi
as if you were telling the pimply teen
at the drive-in-window
to give you extra ketchup?
What about May Gulf water,
lukewarm and foamy
do you want to stop waves
from scattering fish carcass
at our feet?
Did we even notice?
I wish we had hid
inside beach grass and fucked.
How far back do you want to go
to blame me for infecting you?
Do you want to snatch your father
off the Navy Carrier,
send him to Normandy instead ?
Do you want to leave your mother in Mexico,
picking vanilla?
Do you regret twenty years
of steamy showers, sharing razors,
the single sink in the bathroom?
Do you want to be angry
because I worked 11 to 7 at Charity Hospital,
that I took my bare hand
to stop an artery from bleeding?
I'm not sure when I caught
this thing.
Do you blame knees pressed into the bed,
round rump red, flushed.
Where do we put culpability?
How could I know
the virus multiplied silently,
swam in my blood?
How far back do you want to go?
I don't know --
you tell me.
|