Jackie Sabbagh

THE LIFEGUARD I’M PAYING

The lifeguard I’m paying to sit
By the bathtub and keep me

From drowning myself says, I don’t see
Why you have to be earthless.

I come up for air. What’d you say, I ask. I don’t see
Why I have to be shirtless, he says.

It helps you see the bathroom as a beach, I say.
I don’t want to be here

If you’re in love with me, he says.
He scoops up a handful of bubbles

And blows them at me like birthday confetti.
I’m not sure I could even love someone,

I say, who doesn’t feel the—
He sticks a finger in my mouth.

I don’t know why I did that, he says, maybe to shut you up.
Sank you, I say.

JACKIE SABBAGH is a writer and comic in Brooklyn, New York. She holds an MFA from the University of Florida. Her appears in The Louisville Review, Nashville Review, Passages North, Softblow, and Rust + Moth, the last of which nominated her for a Pushcart Prize.