I’d rather be pushed down to the bottom
than to be that kind of man.

I’d rather be pushed down to the bottom
than to be that kind of man.
My first son became a son underwater. The summer after we lost him, I spent a lot of time swimming. Clouds would gather and part above me.
Before we start the walk home, he slaps a white envelope into my wife’s hands, legal sized, too big for the single incisor it holds. Dried flecks of blood from where it came out at the root, faint as a paint chip.