if walt disney’s head is frozen

really, his ashes were interred in forest lawn park
cremated two days after his death, circulatory collapse
from cancer delightfully gnawing away at his lungs
no one deserves to die this way, but do you remember
the first time you noticed the racism, sexism, xenophobia
in his films? i do—i was in my twenties and the cartoons had to be
re-shown to me, because i didn’t recognize it as a child

really, you were gaslighting me for three years
okay, i’ll be generous—two and a quarter
a lot of pacing our bedroom, mid-drunk arguments,
and our roommates could hear it all, ears moving
away from the walls because who wants to intrude
on thought-provoking rapport like that

really, i was obsessively circling your brain, trying
to figure out how it worked and why we didn’t—
wondering if you were right to say we should record our
fights so i’d know how i contradicted myself
re-show it to me because i didn’t recognize it then

i close my eyes to travel back to when you were sobbing
in the hotel shower after my cousin’s wedding, so we
held each other on the balcony, smoking a spliff,
me in your white dress shirt, all the buttons undone,
pushing myself against the railings to meet that night

so maybe the little deaths are confusing
and the freezing part is a way to refuse them
i don’t know—maybe just scatter me instead