Faintly

He's there in my office, talking like a sprinkler, telling too much and not noticing all the words spilled down the front of his shirt.

He tells me he hasn't fainted often, but then from his mouth a catalogue of faints:

once from running too fast, not after romance, but after a baseball

another time, from the sight of a man bleeding on a moving train

the time he held his breath, one boring afternoon in the tall dry grass, late summer, scaring his younger sister. She ran for help until she thought her lungs would burst.

once, when he was six, cutting oranges for his hungry little sister, the same one who would run for him later.

He's a grown man in my office, his wide biceps, his comma stance, a mural of his unconscious moments before me.

And for some reason I can't explain I'm thinking of my bed at home, realizing I've been forgetting there were ever two sides to it, the sweet inconvenience of a him as he moves and grumbles, the pretty trust of sleep. All this forgetting under my distraction habits.

He asks me what I'm thinking.

I look at his thick bottom lip, and wonder how I can ask him. Ask him to faint.