“A Detail in the Fire Escape” by Linda Ashok

That man is a scribe
with a rim of intelligence
and spaceships
bookmark his cheeks

He loves banana flowers
loves rain and carpentry
two blocks of conversation
a sentence, and just a few words
his clean desk policy

Hemorrhagic;
sometimes he slits open
his body from his throat
to testicles and sets a paper boat
on a bad tide
Sits back and basks
in its rendezvous…

I know very little of him
Very little. I know him
as much I know a crow’s call
or a sperm, or you
who sit before
listening to this

entropy. That man
loves my sandal gap, had asked
for my nails by post