In Our Traveling Bathtub

Sometimes I think about how

I love you even in my dreams.

One night, I imagined we were

spies, traveling to a mansion in

a bathtub instead of car, and you

pressed my back against the cold

tile when you kissed me. But, a

different night, the train you rode

slewed off its tracks into a ravine

while I watched through the glass

windows of a diner. I will never

forget how I chewed my tongue

while I looked for your body in the

rocks and twisted metal. For hours

I convinced myself you were alive;

only when I woke up were you dead.

Those four minutes—when writing

your eulogy was more impossible

than any traveling bathtub and my

bedsheets were a concrete casket—

that was the nightmare. But then you

told me good morning, and I was

back in my dreams. Funny how my

mind taught me what losing you feels

like, so I will never let myself wake

up against anything but our cold tiles.

Poem originally published in the September 2024 in issue 35 of the Blue Marble Review.