1.
up to your neck in water, seasalt crust along your collarbones, blisters on your thighs, baby you are beautiful turned inside out, shaken up, receipts for cigarettes and non-prescription pills washing up with the tides, soaked through with washing detergent, your sins smell like vanilla & bargain-bucket soap, the kid at the counter asked if you wanted to keep them and you said yes -- god asks for proof at the golden gates, you want him to know you sat through his matinée shows & b-rated horror films, your blood tamed with diazepam, hand in a bucket of popcorn because your dad was a show, triple d, you took the glasses off when it all got too much & there he was: gone, whiskey breath spiralling away from your neck with your smoke, hold for five seconds then release, one two three, silver circles and wine-red cuts on your lip, it's a counting game, a day and he'll be gone before the bruises form.
2.
wading back, water skimming purple knees, you're real skinny, kid, why don't you eat? have a beer, then. and it's empty houses at eleven at night, business meetings transcending into games of poker, you make your own meals - eat them alfresco, goosebumped calves on concrete, stones between holes in socks. beer sends you flush in the face & you're with friends, tripping up on loose paving slabs and they feel corporeal until they ooze down between the moss, ethanol wisps & whims.
3.
you're just like your father, the landlady tells you so & you guess she knew him better than you ever did, saw the bottom of his beer glasses and read his omens in the dregs. your order is the same, keep 'em coming, you're just like your father. neon palm trees guarding strip clubs nod at his i.d and let you in, there's a bump & grind and you're all hands - hands off, kid, you're just like your father.
4.
you take your son thigh-deep in the water, point down, say: 'this is where i tried to drown myself,' liquor aisle, shop smells of chewed tobacco, old man wheezing out onto ink-spotted paper skin, you can see his veins throb, gin runs at a higher pressure than blood. door hinge laugh, coated in rust, you sure that's your kid?
5.
he's ten & he doesn't know how to tread water, doesn't need to, came first in his swimming class and he probably gets it from you, except you could only ever swim with something tugging at your ankle / chlorine lungs / waves & ragdoll limbs against rocks. you're poolside and buoy-ready, a splutter of water, rheumy eyes, dad.
6.
wide-eyed seraph, lucifer's dna, the nurses did a reel-back and so do you: he's nothing like his father, and of that, you are proud.
