Eli Interprets

At the Kim Petras concert I watch the sign language interpreter during “Throat Goat.”

These lips go la la la / Give me that ya ya ya ya

Curved hands rotating above each other in opposite directions

just below the mouth. Cheeks sucked in then puffed out.

How silly, to understand anything.

On my way home, I feel the familiar click

of my tongue falling down my throat.

I walk into the apartment hitting my head with a teaspoon.

When we get on Facetime, Eli is chopping scallions,

glancing over at the phone. He asks how I am. I attempt:

It’s always dark and start and go and go and there’s no Rob

that is awake it’s always dark and sleep and goodbye and please.

He nods. Yes, dark, you. Personally, I’d be happy if you stayed alive.

I walk circles around my studio like a procrastinating ghost.

Eli asks if I’ve had anything to eat. I try again:

If there were no laws laws not— I think absent circles—

Illegal circles if I existed worse— Rob illegal circles and want if—

My nonsense interrupts itself, it does not correspond.

Still, Eli nods. Ah, you want sushi. You’re a bit schizo

and want to break your veganism to get a salmon roll.

The bodega worker is used to this by now.

As I check out, he waves hello to the tiny Eli in my phone.

In the morning, my voice apologizes to Eli while I lag behind.

I’m so lucky, he replies. I get to hear four brilliant ways you’d start every sentence.

Anyway, I saw a new bird yesterday, I heard this strange call in the park…

While I listen, I decide I cannot die. Not yet.

He has so many more songs to figure out.

—————

Rob Macaisa Colgate (he/she/they) is the author of the poetry collection Hardly Creatures (Tin House, 2025) and the verse drama My Love is Water (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2025). He received an MFA in poetry and critical disability studies from the New Writers Project at UT Austin and is currently a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Alberta.