I am not thinking about desire
but desire is playing its elevator music.
In the background, a cage fighting show
brought to us by a tyre company,
a ring girl described as spectacular.

Our child watches a duck counting coins
by the cubic meter. I imagine him hurt,
the bolt coming loose on a rollercoaster,
some new, mutating disease. Feel my heartbeat
in his while I hug him too tightly.

Corporate job left for childcare and writing,
somedays I pull at my face in the mirror,
my inbox is a dead zone.
What I want and what I’m becoming
only converge in my child’s breath.

I remember talent originally meant
a unit of money. Kick for our entertainment,
vaseline-faced Ultimate Fighter.
Sometimes I’m a little yolo he tells his cutman.
The duck dives into his pool of change.