by Sasha Debevec-McKenney
Johnny teaches me how to use a power drill in reverse
to unscrew the screws out of his work desk, so we can fit it
down his basement staircase. Then he teaches me how
to drill the screws in again and we put it back together
together. In the basement he teaches me how to hold a drumstick.
He holds my hand and starts up a rhythm for me, my arms
slack but on beat-a metaphor so clear it's sickening-
on my back porch he teaches me how to put air in my bike tires,
and later I let him show me how to cut the seeds out of a jalapeno,
stubborn and glad when he stops me from touching my own eye
just as I was about to touch it. Sometimes in bed he puts the palm of his hand
on my chest and says something like, what if we let your feelings in,
instead, and I say let them into where? When he spins me
around in his living room sometimes I spin the wrong way -
Apparently I was supposed to know what it meant
when he left his toothbrush at my apartment.
I am supposed to stay still and let him pick the crust
from my eyes in the morning. At night I let him see me
with my hair tied up. I lay in bed next to him and read,
just read. It's not that bad, I guess, letting my feelings in.
Today he's teaching me how to paddle a canoe.
You don't have anything to worry about, he says.
I feel the boat rocking beneath me
but I keep my elbow straight like his.
We're sweethearts, he says, against the sunset-
and I become the me in the middle of this lake-
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