There are few opening lines more pretentious than
‘I have a hot tub’—maybe ‘I don’t own a TV’ or

‘I read The Economist’—but it’s true and anyway
it’s for my wife’s fibromyalgia and it was on sale

and there’s no other way to explain the leaves that
become trapped and float unnoticed to the surface

sink beneath the jets lost in the flotsom to wind
between our toes and lay at the bottom of this

chemical bath dying as we relax color fading like
an astronaut without oxygen who can’t keep her

eyes open as the warnings flash 15 10 5 3 percent
red through her eyelids but she’s long since succumbed

to an isolated slumber and slipped down to death to
wind between God’s toes, a leaf in the filter but

he still knows her name.

Our fear of slippery slopes
kills joy in its sleep,
ties God’s hands behind our backs,
rises from Satan’s coffee to
curl about his face as he stands
in his bathrobe watching a black
dawn loom above the trees.