Rob Colgate
Body Overloving
When you undressed me, you couldn’t tell apart
the pile of clothes from my body on the floor.
The fire in my chest wouldn’t go out no matter
how much semen you poured on it.
Afterwards I went to the kitchen and all the fruit
was overripe. You kept talking about escape,
the minor pools of your consciousness, that party
where everyone couldn’t stop staring at you.
It hurt me to be listening so attentively. Why am I
like this? I blame each individual dendrite in my brain.
I care more about cataloging moments than living itself.
Your window was a gray cityscape. The fitted sheet
wouldn’t stay on in the corner. Every night together
you made me pay if I wanted there to be light.
And I did. Are you still there?
Just let me know if you need anything.
Rob Colgate reads “Body Overloving”
Rob Colgate (he/she/they) holds an MFA from UT Austin. His writing appears in Best New Poets, Poets.org, Sewanee Review, and Adroit, among others; it has received support from MacDowell, Fulbright, and Kenyon Review. He serves as assistant poetry editor at Foglifter, an editorial reader at POETRY, and poet-in-residence at Tangled Art + Disability.