The only moment God climbs

off my back is when He has to

 

click the clock forward again,

soothe the water in the ice tray,

 

polish the solid earth

into sand. For two weekends

 

I put on an executioner's robe,

smelled hickory under

 

Don Quixote’s breath, threw him

into the middle of a mock tavern

 

as a song about little birds

began. I lived a second life

 

like that, hours at a time,

convinced by costumes, rocks

 

dappled on a wooden set.

To the exterminator

 

I’m a bachelor, could benefit

from fewer waterbugs, less oil

 

overnight, curdled in the pan.

To the preacher, I’m all

 

woolen. My head corralled

between two fence posts of task.

 

Each evening my father races

the shrinking of his shadow to trim

 

the grass & square the hedge.

& me, I prefer to smother

 

the fire before it catches,

eyes closed, in the lilts

 

between my bedmate’s breaths.

That moment, like the one before

 

the body unlocks in climax,

when it can’t.