the fire we gather between us

Okay, look. The thing is, I absolutely cannot go through the whole month of April here in 2022, year of the gay pirates (although if I had my way, every year would be the year of the gay pirates), without posting a poem with the literal title, "Love Pirates." Had I read this poem before I searched the Poetry Foundation archive for "pirates"? I had not. Am I into it anyway? I am. Love pirates, love love pirates.

I follow with my mouth the small wing of muscle
under your shoulder, lean over your back, breathing
into your hair and thinking of nothing. I want
to lie down with you under the sails of a wooden sloop
and drift away from all of it, our two cars rusting
in the parking lot, our families whining like tame geese
at feeding time, and all the bosses of the earth
cursing the traffic in the morning haze.

They will telephone each other from their sofas
and glass desks, with no idea where we could be,
unable to picture the dark throat
of the saxophone playing upriver, or the fire
we gather between us on this fantail of dusty light,
having stolen a truckload of roses
and thrown them into the sea.

—Joseph Millar, "Love Pirates," from Overtime, 2001. Who is more likely to throw a truckload of roses into the sea, do you think, Ed or Stede?