You wake up thrashed along the fitted sheet
and gummy with morning sweats like cod
thwacked from the deep on a splintery dock.
And in your own hands the rod and reel.

Outside, the air’s all invisible and hazardous,
but here, in this mess of coming-to, the dangers
remain a background radiation. As if
that made them safer, when everyone has

within our bodies potassium-40 and carbon-14
from birth, evidence and inheritance. We are
sources of exposure to others. You know, now,
to hug a human in this world is to touch

together the residue of nuclear bombs.
You wake and it’s in your teeth still; you wake
and it’s itching at your skull’s stiff base.
You think this as your son, age seven, bounds,

a cloud of adolescent stink and infant heat,
into your bed. You hold him like a prize
you’ve won. You hold him like you’ve
caught the fly ball, like you get to keep him.