First morning of pride, my love rubs camphor oil

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and menthol into my aching back and I shiver
at the chill of it - like stepping from a shower
into a cool breeze, I say, which, truly,
on a warm and sweating morning like this,
which I cannot say is unseasonable, broken
as we’ve made the seasons now, feels
almost refreshing, even as I rub the same balm
into their muscles, which are growing stronger
these days, as they sweat and curse with metal
so many times I am away, but which ache
after with the evidence of growth, or the process,
and I avoid the fresh wounds they’ve asked
across their spine, and they do not feel a chill,
only relief, and we laugh that we smell
like our grandmothers, who smeared the same balm
across our flesh when we were small,
or into their own aching muscles - that we are becoming old
is no mystery, though its own joy, in becoming together -
they are carving me a cane, and when we limp together
down the stairs they measure my hand’s height
from the floor for the breadth of the handle, which they say
they will cast from metal and smooth until the heavy of it
fits my skin without thought - they half-smile, and then smile,
and say this is one of the first things you told me,
that someday you’d need a gift like this, and I kiss them
on the forehead and say thank you, thank you, and crack my hip
open with a sound that always makes them wince so I can walk
more easily behind them through the opening door

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