Despy Boutris

Flesh and Blood

And this is how you feel most at home: lying down
with your eyes facing the sky

 then tucking your arms into your chest
and rolling down the dampened hill.

 Grass hangs from your hair,
and what blurs above your head becomes trees

again, waves beneath you becoming solid
ground. You clasp fistfuls of grass

bent by breeze. You are something
real, you remind yourself. And real means alive,

means you have a body, means—if you close
your eyes—you might feel your mother’s ghost-

hands brush back your hair, like the times you laid
your head on her lap

on that floral sofa. And while you wait to fall
asleep, you’ll remember your father

sitting by your bed, back when he tried being
sober. Blue eyes rimmed with sleep,

skin made leather from the sun. No hint of rage,
no beer-scented breath. Only his huge hand

on your back, crickets chirping in August heat.
And you wanting him to keep

rubbing slow circles. The bathtub faucet
dripping. The hall’s golden light

creeping beneath the door. Him
crooning Cash tunes to help you fall

asleep. You want to roll so far down this grass
that you roll into your past. Because, sometimes,

it seems like there’s no one left to love
but maybe yourself. And how hard it is

 to love something you know so well.

Two Friends Confront Mortality

We’re treading in the middle of the lake,
the water deep enough to drown us.

My eyes fix to some point in the distance,
beyond the eucalyptus and pines  

making outlines against the night sky.
He lifts his hands to the surface

and splashes my face with water and scum.
I toss my hair over my shoulder, glare

like a territorial bear. He chokes
on his laugh, head falling under water.

What are you thinking about? he asks.
I turn to float on my back, feel the cool water

around my ankles. My face to the sky,
the woman in the moon eyes me,

and our toes touch
as he side-strokes beside me. Ears underwater,

I listen to the quiet ripples. Death, I say.
He laughs. Say more. I search the stars,

make out what few constellations
I know: Big Dipper, Little Dipper, Orion’s Belt.

I say, I’m thinking about how,
even if we got A-bombed right now

and our flesh cooked right off our bones,
completely incinerated or vaporized,

it still wouldn’t kill us more times
than we’re going to die anyway. He turns

toward me. It’s the last night of summer,
and that’s what you’re thinking about?

I smile. It’s comforting.  I float in the lake’s chill—
how these callused hands and feet worn

with summer won’t feel anything one day.
And then I feel skin graze my foot, feel myself

yanked beneath the water. I fight for air,
lakewater in my airways. Come up

and demand, What was that for?  He shrugs.
Just a reminder that we’re alive.

He grabs my loose locks of hair, pulls
like a water-nymph. Come on. Let’s swim.

And we swim.