Sometimes I need a friend to get drunk with,
and lime freshly squeezed—not often,
just now and then, when memory
edges its way into the moment too deep.
If we were to measure—though God knows
why we bother, but if we were, it would be
when longing begins to loosen its grip enough
so you simply sit back and watch her walk
across a parking lot, her hair blown back—
when desire gives way to something else.
We taste it in the ice of our drinks. I try
to explain what it was like to stand naked
in line with a eighty other young men
waiting to rinse under a single shower head
then going back to the end of the line
to soap up when there were other showers
available, but restricted. How does one explain
how and why we complied.
from García Lorca Is Somewhere in Produce