How I am as a man, always dependent
on how well I fill out my shirt.

At Hemingway’s home, I’m shapeless,
but for America’s southernmost wind

inhabiting the chasm between
my wet chest, the preshrunk

cotton tee from the pub on Captiva
overlooking the only beach

I’ve ever wanted to annex for my state
of mind. Was this the first hungover

morning I didn’t notice the absence
of the restless dark getting dressed,

that I acquiesced to the tourist in the mirror,
comfortable and schlubby, unabashedly

submissive to the city’s limits?
My girlfriend bends into the birthing chair

Papa repurposed for fishing trips. How
warping this paternal fraternity, where

urinals butterfly as fountains, where
felines grow seventh toes and mustaches,

where my skin doesn’t fit, I’m turning six,
mashing my plastic hammer against the real

nail protruding from the wood, while my dad lies
low in a neighbor’s garage, smoking another decree nisi

Kool instead of showing me how to
build my own cross like a real man.