This morning the pipes are clogged again
in my brain, flooded with the same old gray
dishwater, foaming with regret, despair, etc.,
until the longed-for body waking beside mine
wraps an arm around my chest, gives a little tug
to unstop me, burnishes the day ahead. I forgot
that could happen. Yeah, he says, sweeter than
I remember, and I missed having someone to push
me around in the night and steal the sheets. I wish
I were gentler when I’m afraid. To repent or
maybe to celebrate, I’ll make the coffee, more than
we could want, another thing to leave unfinished.
Steven Pfau is a Los Angeles–based essayist and poet. He received his MFA from the University of Idaho, and his writing appears or is forthcoming on Poets.org and in Blue Earth Review, DIAGRAM, Guernica, Hobart, Passages North, and The Shore.