What Love Feels Like

If a single dad loses his teaching career, he loses
Everything. So I work out. I start with the bicep curl

Machine. I hear the grunts of the man five machines
Down. I think about my Corolla in the dark lot.

The gray things and the shadows up there. I think
Too much, and then at the gym I think no more.

The towels are white and stiff. I drink tap water
From a middle school fountain near the restroom.

Both my kids fill my heart in my small apartment,
Especially when my tween daughter asks to watch

The Amazing World of Gumball. I record it for her.
Long ago, I long-term subbed for a chemistry class.

The teacher kept a bearded dragon. It ate when I ate.
I remember thinking this is what love feels like.

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Alejandro Escudé’s latest book of poems, “The Book of the Unclaimed Dead,” published by Main Street Rag Press in 2019, is now available. He received a master’s degree in creative writing from UC Davis.