Down at the river’s lip
                                                     we strip and wheel
off the dock like moon-mad children, strewn
into brackish nights
                                                     with wounds we don’t want
to heal. Struggling and spitting,
                                                     we swim; we spoon
currents, rippling out
                                                     toward each other, grouped
in pairs like mating critters, yawping, flinging
baptismal mud,                    we loop
ourselves like Ouroboros,
                                                     teething on tongues.

Goose-bumped and cold, each takes their turn.
“Who here believes in sin?”
                                                     —our childish prayer
bewildering no one
                                   but us, and off-kilter

we stray, careening back up the bank still set
to fail again and again, forgetting to find regret.