After Lamb Vindaloo

Such moments can be indebted to self-
reflection: a birth, a loss, this potential
new love, cross-legged, feet from this
bathroom, deaf to my tract; yet vitality
pervades for both of us, at this age, this
twenty-three, when no one has cirrhosis
and smokers’ skin glows just as radiant
as tabloid models’: the young, the less young.
Meanwhile, I am tackling mortality, these
churning questions, if losing control
of my bowels so early speaks disaster.
I want to singe my name into this stall, some-
thing crass to act as my epitaph. I draw
from drawn demotics, graffiti-tagged
highway walls, desk-etched expletives,
hearts in trees with four initials, two adjacent,
welded together, eternally, or until chopped,
manufactured for a new door, a new
canvas to be marred with a mark
of yeah, I’ll be here forever. Call me.