Elbows pushed into your sides, you steady
the phone camera, step closer to where I sit
on a wooden bench in Schiller Park.
Your finger pushes the button to catch
only a suggestion of intimacy. You hand
my phone back to me, plop onto the bench.
I tell you I’m tired of taking pictures because
they leave out raw, negative emotion
flooding our relationship at this moment.
The camera does not see a confession
of your heroin addiction that you just unloaded
on me like a mountain of disparagement.
We sag silent on the bench, both of us clad
in Levi’s worn thin as the leftover scrap
of commitment I feel after you admit
your drug dependency. The pond in front of us
glitters as if chips of gypsum have been sprinkled
over it. A child squats on the grassy bank,
pushes his sailboat forward with a long stick.
If he isn’t careful, he will push the boat too far
away from shore to guide it, will have to run around
the periphery until it becomes close enough
for him to control again. The child affords
a common focus for us and my awkward effort
to communicate beyond shock. Afternoon,
May sky burns the eyes with startling blue
the color of a poison dart frog, it’s color a warning
to predators that it is poisonous. You trudge
to the refreshments stand, carry back two Cokes.
Your beautiful hand slides down sweat
on the plastic cup. Droplets glitter like transparent,
minute flowers. I aim my mind’s camera at you,
click a deep shutter, record the indecipherable image
of your secret and the death of us.
