I squeeze the aloe
flesh over my knees
as your cousin scolds me
for saying ocean
when we are by a sea.
To me this is casual—
isn’t it all the same water?—
to her it isn’t.
What I could call her
is colonist since
it takes one to know.
Later, I wake when evening
still stains viridian
above the pink
and lemon neighborhood
to the schhh
of your grandfather’s
slippers on the tile which I hear
as the first soft syllable
of the name
we share. Six years
now you and I don’t speak.
If I was not in love
there are secrets
a self keeps safe—
if I was you were right
to forget me.
- Sam Ross, from Company