obliterations now round every corner, the silver magnetic mass,
formless, not creatable or destroyable, always churning—and where

is judgment day? i won’t have you afraid of clock hands.
not of your own unfamiliar reflection. not the hapless lonely wander,

of your skull not as home but ivory cage, of your own pain, given pain,
needless pain—fine, then. again. go again, horizon-eyed. step into

the tide of a trillion tomorrows, crush below the wet and pulverized
mess spat by each frothing horror, and wade into the dark, like water.

WE ARE THE FLEDGLINGS

when even this lurid hour drops the leash—
that’s how i know the night is going well.
there’s no more left to lose. what sharps?
what aloof, protective mystery? what home?

the caper’s third haunt, in one of those old
man pubs, our heads thrown back in the mahogany-
choke and mold colony, darts thumping,
tables sticky and seeping ale and fine, i’ll play
sweetie, i’ll play pet, i’ll play love. if i blush,
and peach hasn’t shouldered itself through the heavy
dim, have i blushed?

before i stand to reach you all, my thighs cling
to the booth leather and pop free.

the unvisitable place, which is not a place, which
is a feeling, which is an inimitable feeling—
hollering, self-wooing succubi—

a bottle shatters at the bar and i’m scared
to link our fingers in case it was really the collapse
of our own breakable thing, our tenderglass
worth naming but too weak to survive ultraviolet
gaze, obliterated by the rattle of one line
spoken too gently.

tell you what: i’d traverse the shards
barefoot to keep this going, then jar
the consequence as a souvenir.

after the yellow hours offer their timid
ought-to’s we invent a new twisted
collection of sounds that fold themselves
into the wooden nooks, different words
for the same shriek:
we were here, so far from death.

THE UNIVERSE MAY STOP EXPANDING IN FIVE BILLION YEARS

at which point time will cease
to exist and i can finally stop
complaining. there’s a fragile
world reflected in the glassy
pearl of your spit left
on my belly and i’m telling
you, i’ve never been so
old. the day sucks with leech-
teeth. even given the shreds
of your dead rind caked under
my fingernails there’s the black
chasm of want expanding
in my chest the way a bead
of ink breaks, making me difficult
to touch without an exit plan.
imagine, please, a better
continuum. you say earlier
doesn’t feel real and you’re right,
not because there was anything
exceptional about the heath
in early afternoon, not because
our chins sticky with cider
was a notable pip in this
quivering glitch of a life,
but because it was too ordinary
to even dare remember,
because we’ll someday ache
for any regular sunday in june
where the sun was a sure
thing and breath tasted like warm
grass and there was not a single
indication the cosmos would one
day shut like your eyes, tight
with pleasure.