We came here for the endangered Chilean sea bass

but I can’t even hear myself chew over the smooth jazz.

It is appropriately unbearable when I decide to butter

my bread instead of writing you a letter. Ear cupped

to the conversation’s subtext circling the drain, naked

and drenched in water, I am in no position to save us

conveniently. I begin to pulse red like I just took damage

in a video game, and your correction of my pronunciation of

élan chills me. Is this an ice rink or a restaurant, what am I

to do with this functional knife, and where have all the sea

bass gone? It’s hard to explain without spoiling how it ends

in language, nudity, sex, smoking and suicide. Parental

advisory: your teeth shine white like I’ve been licking them

clean through the passage of years since you left me.