Fish Out of Water

As cars pull in the lot behind the old warehouse

kicking up gravel to make a U-turn

and a perched grackle wings its way

toward a branch, close enough that I can see

the feathers spiked roughly beneath the beak,

an iridescent weight making limbs sway,

I sit on the bank of the Missouri

not knowing where else to be.

The muddy river seems still almost

except for the places where it whorls.

Every few minutes a fish flips itself into the air

and then splashes beneath the surface,

something I can’t catch, but try to—

the tattoo on your right arm, the moth there

in motion. You work by moving things

into positions, by reversing a scrap of paper,

by pasting your body hair beneath the text:

Getting Down to Business. Yesterday, a piece of

oblong fabric—a wobbly presence—

belonged here, floating about the frame.

And today, what could be

the arms of a cactus

makes more sense by itself.

Each shape is revealed by the spaces

in-between. Rolled together in the night

you weren’t sure how to speak at first of

your body’s position to mine

but then you could.

The small-town heat makes everything stick,

our skin pressing into one another,

the hair soft and light above your tailbone—

I won’t forget how you directed me there.