but i wish myself into
the titanic’s turkish baths,
2 – 6 p.m.: men only hours,
not despite its sinking but
to de-baptize our longing;
give me that high-concept
low-effort kind of fatality:
two queer bodies buried
into drowning loungers
& let’s fall
into each other’s skin
because i can no longer stand
that every love song turns
into a confession of hunger,
at least a ship wrecks its bones,
at least steam shrouds our lips.
& i prayed to a martyr
& believed
she’d white-noise my face:
de-christening by absorption nebula,
whatever liminal space implodes
insight a chant for absolution.
i could never breathe
underwater but last summer
we sank into your father’s bathtub
& stained-glass windows triangled
our knotted limbs.
you pushed me under,
drowned me out because
you, too, knew what starvation
consumes;
& when the ocean ingested us,
I remembered to swim.
but i’ll never forget
how to gulp.

Daniel Mohr (he/him) is a queer poet and fiction writer, based in Germany. His work has appeared in Canthius, carte blanche, Contemporary Verse 2, Nonbinary Review, Eunoia Review, and elsewhere. He mostly writes when it’s dark or when it’s snowing – preferably both.