Tepid

I ran the bath before the phone call

and the phone call ate everything.

Forty minutes of the same sentence

rearranged — I can't, you won't,

the numbers don't,

the numbers never —

When I came back the water

was perfectly still. No steam.

The overhead light sat

on the surface like a coin

I wouldn't bend for.

I got in anyway.

Lukewarm. That useless middle —

not warm enough to open

anything in me, not cold

enough to close it.

The water held my body

the way a waiting room

holds a body:

technically. Without opinion.

I watched my stomach rise

above the waterline — pale hill,

ridiculous — and thought

about how the argument

had no winner, just two people

spending themselves down

to the same flat temperature.

The drain plug leaked.

A thin line of water leaving

so slowly

I could pretend it wasn't.