Drinking from the slosh tank

by Perry Levitch

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The carpal ridge of a bus passenger's braces
in sunlit profile. Sharp mouth. If I was someone

who believed in god I would spend all my time
angry at god about the wrong thing. Isn’t there

enough to go around? Can you believe it. A year in
and I’m trying to explain I'm monogamous

but also interested in how hummingbirds live
on a million tiny meals. Interested in whatever

dogs get from chewing the leash. I mean I want
eye contact with subway strangers and then

to sheath myself reverently beside you
every night. Curl up at your feet. I'm on foot

in the bike lane walking faster than the bikes go.
One can drown in anything. You say Drowning in air

is probably less bad though. You feel worse and worse
in the city. I feel worse and worse in the tendons

at romanticizing what I don't understand. I love you
more than the city. You a tall tree wavering

in the wind. If/when I’m tree the wind comes
from the soft recesses of your mouth. I mean

I waver too. When they build the tallest
buildings they’ll include a slosh tank. Huge

dimple of water near the top. Weight to pull
the building back onto its spine when it goes

inevitably woozy in some breeze. I blare
my love out of my face like a showerhead.

You trickle yours from your feet like a root
system in reverse. What matters more: how

much there is or where it’s coming from?

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Perry Levitch's poems have appeared in pigeon pages, the Rappahannock Review, and the Columbia Review, among others. They are a Pushcart Prize nominee and a former Poetry Editor of Washington Square Review. They received their MFA from New York University.