Hewn by Melissa Helton (Ships Late December)

Iceberg

You push the sloppy bangs out of your eyes.

(What that means is you are about to tell me

of the time you kissed the girl next door

in her father’s garage, under the 1993

Budweiser calendar, the crimped-haired bimbo

glossy and pouting down at you.)

Your sloppy bangs fall back down.

(What that means is you liked kissing

girls and she didn’t.)

You look from under your hair

across the room at me, and I stop blinking.

(What that means is I would gladly Titanic myself,

peck holes along my hull against you,

knowing damn well it is a mathematical disaster.)