I could not tell you
from my deaf imagining
if I heard its voice.

Our ears are played on daily.
Shadows disappear at night.

So long, I have lived
unsure of me, in the dark.
I saw you, and knew.

One thing, to see another,
must open its eyes and look.

I saw someone I knew.
I quietly heard her speak.
The jokes made sense, after.

If our breathing in
hurts the rare air in the room,
open a window.

Perhaps, through a slit, a crack
in what can’t, we can breathe free.

You owe God nothing.
“They” cannot need us at all.
The universe ends.

It will not, in an epoch.
How short need an epoch be?

At two years old, I failed
to reach the potty in time.
My only Mom “forgave” me.

I study Her form
for my snow white angles,
cold, blunt thievery.

This weather is farcical.
You should hear it on the news.

It’s not that the globe
isn’t on fire, today,
nor haven’t I smoked.

It is not my time to blow
rings in the face of my death.

I’ve never listened
to those who have insisted
it’s time to give up.

In a moment of weakness,
I would hide from your power.

Formalities exchanged,
sympathies given back,
Your absence would remain.

One rainy morning,
lying beneath the cool sheets,
no one will hear me.

It is not your fault, in truth,
that I have damaged my voice.

Some rain has to fall;
sunny days are not enough
for flowers to grow.

At black January’s end,
we should expect two cold months.

I know the T-shirts
bother my peers as much as
me wearing a coat.

It would taste

like artificial cherry syrup,

it would look

like FD&C Blue #1,

(“the flavor of technology,”)

if my words were sweet cane to your eyes,

if they cooed like

the perfect mother

in your burning, innocent ears,

nursery rhymes

with no higher ambition

than for you to be happy,

with the mouthfeel

of a candy shell

rather than the alkalinity

of a bitter vegetable

“mom” made you eat.

At glance, askance, too brightly might you shine

for eyes affixed to seer’s shadows cast;

when sun, to moon, to earth, perchance, align;

that cry for moments dead before they’ve passed.

Amaterasu, Freya, or Khebat?

Divine, I would, by cards, or runes, or tea

a seat in Heaven, (standing in Duat,)

for you, a might you might not want to be.

My breath is inappropriate; my lips

are pursed around the gnashing of my teeth.

Perhaps, a poet shouldn’t dance for tips.

Perhaps, your God’s above and mine’s beneath.

The virtue of my angles is “to cut”

where reticence and augury abut.