Jacob Rivers

Sometimes you hear the bath running like a flooded salt marsh. Three times in a day. This way, I can drown out the Suboxone singing into his head. Sizzling and ashen flowering through his ears. It doesn't sound badly when it sings. And together we make the bed in the morning, in the afternoon, and then again in the middle of the night.  He slips under his covers to be closer to the furnace, blinking slow and warmly. The Suboxone melts under the blaze.  He drools and wipes it on his chest. I tell him his chest feels strange— it doesn't belong to him. Convinced, he carves it out and leaves it on the ground to go dreaming for another. Foot by foot, I slowly make my way down his throat and wear him like a suit. I push out the marrow to make space, and

you listen carefully to us behind the door. You picture your mother and father who are flying off into another salted, brining house. Like birds, they swallow broken things to make whole again. But not here. Everything gave up, yet you would still grow extra limbs. Would pick up bones all day long in the field.