He had told me to circle the lake.
Smell of pepper and pine resin.
Black people died or went missing
that summer, everyday it seemed,
and here was someone who wanted to find me.
We drank red wine, heavy and bitter.
Like hands of a clock, sunlight swerved across the lake;
terns mixed their shadows and bodies with the water.
When he laughed, a little foam
gathered on his incisors. He helped me into the wild grass
and slash pines when I couldn’t walk.
There is a roof one man’s body makes over another.
Pine needles on sharp grains. This is what I remember.
This is how I escaped the world. A little foam.