.

you tell yourself that the person
sitting across from you, the one
resting his finger on yours, is
a man. but what you see are cells
sliding across a face with no
way to bridge the nearandfar.
unreachable distance. time.
so you wonder if the notion
of personality is just a
convenient something to
frame the chance-and-flow
of pheromones with. considering
how each cell in the human body
will ultimately replace itself
once every seven years, you
remind yourself that this
relationship, whatever it
is, makes both of you
fountains of flesh.
magnificent ones.

if each moment holds infinate
possibilities, how many small
forevers might he have whispered
under what moon? how many
moments could he have prolonged
by the warm breath of words on
skin, back-of-the-neck words?
and what flow of upstream hope
from the surface tension of little
lettered vessels, menisci-breaching
ones, might have spilled through
blood-brain barriers to reach
the inner world in a watery rush
at sense, the thought and feeling
of each subsequent gesture,
the time of it, as if the last?

overhead, I hear the whir-whir-whir
of a Trumpeter's wings thrusting air
at the lake. it is the sound of distance.
long white neck and flat black bill.
an arrow heading home. I am sorry
for what has been done; trans species
genocide hidden in a word, culling,
when 'stateside atrocity' is truer.

ours is a continual vanishing away.
his finger to mine, my distance
to his. but written into every
cell of every thing is the
redress of balance.
always.