Your shower in the morning 

a bamboo rainstick, inverted.

And all the things I could say

seem to come from ankle-deep water,

the kind that moves and pulses

and never leaves a standing rock dry. 

Shallow's what I mean. Compliments

accumulate like saliva, and I spit 

often. Wine makes me cough. 

This morning, you looked at your wall

at your home country's flag. "Red,"

you said, "it's red." Briefly your Daltonism

escaped you. Or you escaped it. 

Your first instinct was not to step closer.

Instead, you sat beside me in bed, our ears

touching. Two halves of an oyster, closing.

You wanted to see the room how I see it.

Shallow water never touches your ankles

in the same way twice.