I.

last month during a press conference on live television

Andrew Cuomo said wear a mask, 

it’s state law. then slid two elastic 

loops over either ear, pulled the papery 

rectangle down, hooked it around his chin and asserted: 

this is nothing I don’t know what this is. 

this is like a form of a chin guard. it accomplishes nothing. 

II.

the one-liner bio on Andrew Cuomo’s Twitter account reads: 

father, fisherman, motorcycle enthusiast, 56th Governor of New York. 

in that order. in addition to overseeing 

the marriage and women’s equality acts, Andrew graduated

from Fordham University and is a long-time 

friend of Billy Joel. yes the American

singer-song writer whose piano-infused hit

River of Dreams is now stuck in your head. 

III.

you hate this song and so do I. 

but when Andrew Cuomo speaks 

you feel at ease. his NY-Metro-area accent like fresh 

fruit suspended in a frosted pint glass 

of carbonated lemon water. his sun-touched mouth 

makes the sound of your east-coast upbringing. of waist-high 

nights in Italian kitchens, pork

rolls on fresh bagels to-go, the tick

of spin-2-wins at the Jersey Shore. you stare 

at Andrew Cuomo’s mouth as it waxes 

about chin straps and state law with the kind of directness 

that people who aren’t from where you’re from 

call downright rude—you find comfort 

in his candid delivery, make it your own mouthful 

of lemon-fizz-fruit drink. sip deep. your father 

who sounds like Andrew Cuomo

cannot have drinks anymore. or maybe the word

is shouldn’t. when the two of you sit in a cool river on a hot day

in July, you let him pull the small accordion 

of his mask down and make a chin guard out of it.

because according to the studies you are far 

enough apart and so is everyone else and there is the sun 

and the air moving and the cold 

water between. and besides, off-air 

Andrew Cuomo would 

probably say yeah it’s ok. 

IV.

ever since before the end of middle school 

your father has not been ok. as a kid, 

you remember him telling you nothing

I have accomplished absolutely nothing before sinking,

his face turning into what a face would look like 

if it were a cumulonimbus on the horizon. 

V.

there in the eddy in the river at a distance you listen 

to the geese sounding off overhead. the water 

that does not stop—its coolness that does not stop 

either. your father remarks on the chicas

calientes in their bathing suits along the water’s edge. sometimes 

your father sends the entire extended family 3am emails 

about how he’s learning 

Spanish or writing a legacy-securing memoir or planning 

to inlay handcrafted 14-karat gold rings with blue 

sapphire and ask Elton John to endorse them through his celebrity. 

VI.

other times you receive pre-dawn emails about holy wars, self-defense 

methods, why women run the world, or how he started cutting 

his Citalopram pills in half and the merits of tapering 

off SSRIs. the majority of your father’s stream-of-consciousness midnight 

prose contains links you are not sure you should click on. often 

you reply thanks, pops! and hope that he feels heard 

which is different 

than feeling listened to. 

VII.

looking up 

you see the tough-soft bellies

of geese cutting lines through blue—OG neoprene in flight. your father’s 

face and mostly toothless mouth forming words in 5pm sun. his sun-spotted 

hands moving up to remove a dragonfly 

from his shoulder. you see his shoulder. 

VIII.

you look around at the beautiful youth 

perched on the un-submerged 

hot halves of boulders—summer suds in cans in their hands—and whose bodies 

are telling you: 

I am beautiful. I am invincible. Now what?

IX.

looking down into the water, through the surface and three feet down 

to where the silt and the rocks and the softened sticks do not stir, you remember

the two of you are in an eddy, which is a circular current that tends to flow opposite 

a main river. you think you see something in the odd calm of the oppositional 

rush—maybe a metaphor for his life or yours or no one’s. 

like the links in his emails, you are not entirely sure.

X.

you watch the dusk-swallows dive and swallow 

the kind of insects that know how to tightrope pools of surface tension 

like Gravelet spanning Niagara—artfully and with full confidence. you take confidence 

from the fact that your father has taught you many things. 

mostly about survival but also that insects like these are called water-skimmers 

and that words are important even when you can’t find them.

XI.

the sound of your father and the sound of the river coalesce, run

away with one another downstream. you don’t say

much. just nod while the geese do another loud pass 

and let your father speak how he speaks, 

which is not unlike Andrew Cuomo

underwater. 

XII. 

through the words he finds he remembers 

the feeling of suds and cans and soaring. he is smiling

his nine-tooth smile and there is not a cloud in sight.

in a cool river on a hot day in July the east 

coast is far away and your father is still

your father, and there are lemons

in your mouth.