the lovers who look like
twins are exhausted. it's
been seventeen years.
we keep talking about the
apocalypse. "the what?" i
always wind up asking.
my mom's mustang turned
out to be neither death nor
the long goodbye. nowadays
the big difference is the swarm
of new late night talk show hosts
who allow her the 'sleep' she never
seems to need. it's four in the
morning in the pacific and i de-
cide to rise. like frankenstein or
dracula, in a way i suppose. stiff
and vaguely monstrous. who’s
to say they were ever bad. or any-
thing but the rest of us, a conglo-
merate of fright. they loved. we
love. centuries seem to divine
different definitions, different
compulsions, in the meanings
of this illogical force. each of us,
a monster, cannot make sense
of the dynamo that takes us over.
it happened. it happens. "some
parts of us are lived in return"
(to quote jack spicer, who says
the rest of us will remain two
persons). what of the parts of
me that others despise? the
trail i leave behind as a reminder
to any and all that i alone loved
wholly? loved divinely? you may
find humor in this at breakfast,
but by suppertime i know the
hateful grip of this notion has
caught on. 'is it my legs,' you
might wonder. "it's my ears,
i just can't stand it!". "it is my
pale cheeks in autumn.". and,
as ever, the morbid silence.
if we had a hearth. if only
we each had a hearth. we
could spend our days away
from thoughts of you and me.
and on the bald mountain
that breaks our twisted spines
each long winter. and then i
laugh. your grim lips at your tea.
