Saturday in Costa Rica

By Tess Congo

According to the clock in the kitchen, it’s Saturday.
The cat pucks the condom wrapper across
bedroom granite. The New Yorker

I’d become, not yet risen from sea foam, listens
to your voice on the balcony, how it softens
into deerskin. Time splashes like headlights

in our faces, how suddenly you could love me.
I wanted to learn what that meant—to love 
you. Back flat on the kitchen linoleum, 

you smiled like a canoe upon broken water.
I sunk my ear to your sternum, listening
for fists against the screen door. 

The cat breaks a water glass in the bedroom, 
and a year later, I’ll walk like a lioness, smiling
over glass shards.