CANDY HEARTS

Two twin lobes—

chirrup-sweet, 

spittle-shiny, 

every kind of wine-

colored—

conjoined 

to appease, 

to circumscribe 

our little-

minded pleasantries. 

GETTING OLD

In the cold 

pointless rain 

of an infertile February, 

it gets difficult 

to concentrate

as all sound 

grows thin—

impossible to harmonize 

the last year 

of my life 

with the speculative fictions 

peeling off the wind. 

Is this still 

the new year? 

And who is 

to say?—

each day, just as 

fathomless 

as every 

other day.

THE MEASUREMENT PROBLEM

Ironically, before 

there were numbers, 

the dream 

of you and I 

was a lot more 

precise. 

Our goodbyes 

were less conceptual, 

our barbs 

more cut and dried. 

Twice 

was a luxury; 

halfway, 

a meeting place. 

Now, I can no longer lie 

in the dark at night 

and estimate the worth 

of your indefinite face, 

then drift off to sleep 

while I count myself lucky 

that you're simply 

nearby, 

or else

very far away.

BEST CASE SCENARIO

What we 

wish for 

most of all 

in the darkness is 

a surrogate—

a twin 

who'll suck the poison 

from our ache 

with a kiss. 

But perhaps there is 

a reason our unease 

cannot be claimed: 

anxiety can never be 

extinguished—

just revised; 

languor and fatigue, 

once overhauled, 

are reinstated.

One can't just "go around"

the abysses

of experience—

each chasm 

must first be 

forded, 

then surveyed—

and finally 

named. 

MUTATIONS

In the beginning, 

was the metaphor—

transformation 

as second nature. 

But somewhere along the line, 

we confused 

a red delicious 

with the furious counterpoint 

of everyday experience; 

we got duped 

by a bugbear 

with a sibilant attack 

into 

trading in truth 

for the magic beans 

of facts. 

We were ends 

transmogrified solely 

into means 

not by 

the licking tongues 

of sword flames 

but the flicking tails 

at the ends

on our genes. 

PANIC ATTACK

There's a knot in me 

where some 

nimbleness used to be—

a supple expanse 

once known as 

"later on." 

If only 

I could draw someone's

attention to this mass, 

these ganglia unyielding 

to the endless arm 

of light. 

But the voice which comes 

from the throat 

of this gorgon

is ruinous and false—

and the entrance 

to my everywhere, 

which she guards 

with a bloodlust, 

however enticing,

is ironclad 

and dark. 

There's no use in trying 

to untie me 

from this malady;

the two free ends 

of a string this gnarled 

are always 

somewhere else.

GENUINE ARTICLES

Fearing that 

someday we'll be 

cut in half and sorted, 

we grow eager 

to head our killers 

off at the pass,

and so we hack 

at our selves until we're 

unzipped snippets—

parts of parts, stuffed 

into glove compartments, 

shorn of our edges, 

locked in the dark.

We think: the more 

we're scattered

the harder we'll be 

to locate—

and therefore,

the more likely we are 

to be found

a commodity. 

The ghostlier, 

somehow, the more 

substantial; 

the barer the better. 

Our treasure 

is our lack.