Polydipsia

Drinking my beer while holding

my baby is the closest I come

to being Buddha—night after

night, neighborhoods of my liver

dying off while he outgrows

one onesie, then the next.

It’s like scoops of flickering

streetlight plus the gravel

we rode in on, all the fine bits

of rock and time I can fit

in a fist. It’s cross-eyed looks

we give each other at

the end of every sixer,

birds in blue who flock

to smoke, grass growing

in the patchy backyard where,

in the corner, I pour out

the last sips and hope

to grow a tree.