I don’t know what you’re saying–
I was just baptized in sensory deprivation
saltwater. You took an Adderall

to live in your tornado of case papers,
clacking away at the keyboard buzzing
with school sentences I do not crave

to understand. From the speakers, jazz
dances uneven through honeyhive fluorescents
above us. I scoot my chair in closer

to the table, and there is a squeak either
from my movement or a clarinet falsetto.
Sometimes the world is synchronized;

sometimes a miracle I make excuses for.
I held the planet’s limestone on my neck
when I was afloat– it became weightless.

(originally published in RASPUTIN, Winter 2020)