tantamount

The ribbon absorbs
light            in places

where darkness
is not embraced by its folds.

You could say I am awake
right now

taking this skin like metal detector
across the city to uncover

the numb and hear our pleasure
beep against the slumberous

roar of the streets.

Does it even make sense to observe
loneliness from the inside, or how eyes

paint a bridge for desire
to cross and sink into another?

The nouns in our verbs
are equally alive as the vowels

that die in our sighs.

Because you are writing
this by reading this

because I am attempting
to make sense of what came before us,

then you are here
forging the future,

as we meet this structure
wearing chaos in our hair

listening to the fire
that only a human mouth

can ignite into language.

The frame of tendency

The washing
of the stones,
the fleas

adorning a current of curl,
the erosion of tooth; nothing
more can be

done in this space
below the power
of the original algorithm.

No finality to how
intensely the river
swallows or how rabidly

the mongrel bites his coat,
or why hardened wheat
abrades ivory

in its constant transit to feed.

The house hosts
an ecosystem of desires.

Million-year-old cravings.

Erasmus sleeps on the floor,
the river outside chokes to death
and this smile weak

against the window’s lucidity
adds fuel to knowledge.

All things are together
footprints of the great pattern.

The fleas feast
now their tiny morsel of mongrel;
Erasmus – their giant raison d’être

whimpering as the horizon’s tail
gushes forward.

The plate remains
quieter than anything else –

supporting the last crumbs of toast.

Containerized

The inch I
possess has
foundational sweetness.

An acrobatic
diffusion of terms – paradox
is often laced with twilight

dawn beginning / blood the end.

When you said,

‘add more pepper’

did you expect this hour’s
intensity intensified?

On the surface
everything is either
sensation or language.

How much skin
is severed when we scrape

meaning off
the world?

When you
pronounce ASK
as if I have waited

a century to bore a tunnel into the deepest regions of your being.

As if I
could spread
uncertainty
as a tangible thing:

more actual than the mist
that blurs the horizon
after your thoughts arise.

I have questions
too, dialogues
in paper so hard
to erase.

My tiny
position aches
for a bridge;

some brave
conveyance

to another future inch.