parfait

each day sashays along. these roles might be miscast.

i filled a jar with papaya peels and it smelled like frogs and other bright wet things. (maybe one day we'll cut into one and find its cavity brimming with tadpoles.)

we are riding the waves of inertia, sometimes. we all know we are displaced, unhoused from the land and the dirt of our heels, but we strap on blinders and just look on down all these flat, straight avenues. we fall to our knees, but only to better see the dawn.

this is something else. shadowing his cheeks and his fingers.

we pause.

i ask, again, How've you been? we both pause. he looks at the door, the floor, me.