Lounging at Wilton Manors

October 2024 | poetry

Hook mouthed; a cadaver turns to kiss me—

Danny—adrift through skin, grabs

my filament of fishing line, pulling back

to bloom. He wears a lesion,

maybe three, dark and almost blued

to midnight, tells me it’s a birthmark

I’ve forgotten. The dream is 1986—

when death was stored in a dimpled

bottle, amethyst, scented, Halston Z-14

in every cabinet. I wake, find myself

poolside with shadows of old friends.

Gifts of age creep pockets—cock rings,

magnifier wipes, phones programmed

with reminders. Tired of survival,

dried like air cured cod, I flee Danny’s

pancake-hidden lesions, step into the afternoon.

Timeless scrotum by the pool, I swim

in yet another hour, outdoor showers and cabana

crypts. Lounging, friends and I are varicose,

a clot of sixties, seventies, a murder

of anniversaries breaking loose

and traveling to the heart. Time repeats,

a second AM/PM pillbox. I’m losing them.

I’m losing them all, again.

Robert Carr

Robert Carr is the author of Amaranth, published by Indolent Books, and two full-length collections published by 3: A Taos Press – The Unbuttoned Eye and The Heavy of Human Clouds. His poetry appears in many journals and magazines, including the Greensboro Review, the Massachusetts Review, and Shenandoah. Forthcoming collections include Phallus Sprouting Leaves, winner of the 2024 Rane Arroyo Chapbook Series, Seven Kitchens Press; and Blue Memento, from Lily Poetry Review Books. Additional information can be found at robertcarr.org