fit to burst, *****, coat you
  in tepache
ginger and sweet, stink of
  the slow gelatiny we keep

or kept

it’s just energy, right?
  this momentum is my entire chest
we are deer frolicking through
  a summer forest
especially you with the white dots you put on your cheeks

it’s cute
  and I tell you, and you hide your face
and you laugh at me for the sound I make when you hug me
  and the deer step, ginger and sweet, steep ***** down

a rock unwedges. it doesn’t mean anything.

the alien, the absurd
intrigue you, we share that
  watching pink spaghetti
absurd is the way we are donuts
  and the absent filling
  and why you can feel at home
    on the seafloor with me,
    losing at stupid games
you know, a tripod fish can stand?

we felt it coming, or I did
  and we watched it for some time
  watched the shadow of something bigger than our imaginations
  that should have been soft and lively
  fall. and by the time it was to us, it had bloated
  bulbous in the abyss

but more time has passed, it may have been years,
  and we have found way to eat it,
  scuttling and gleaming.

there are more of us than it felt. crawling out of the
  sand, immobile for eons, staring as stars fell from
  the sky, or nasty anglerfish, or from ourselves.

but this meteor is nurturing. our own little cambria,
  and we spring to action, claw in claw,
  turning rot into joy

the sludge from my toes,
sweet and leaking marrow, secreted
into roots that eat the earth
because once, i bled
— my head didn’t have antennae
before i met you, lost you

and i’m sat alone in this grove of whispers
not the only tree, or the last moth.
the only voice is mine,
“oh, i’ve grown, have i”
and i’ve healed, but is it
  the sun my dripping branches follow?
is it the sun?

If I could, I would make my fingers longer
and crack, I would lean forward in my dim-lit cottage chair
I would leer down at you, taller than me
I would swell in shadow with the smell of poultice around

You would think I have more eyes than I have

And I would say
“Young Beast, finally, you have joined me here in the Present. So I curse you again.”

And you would leave without your fur.

every string in a knitting wheel,
  all color and texture and progress.


sometimes, a poem is
  stapling Time to the floor
  hoping, as it hops out the window,
  it leaves you the tear of its train.

make it from a glass of water with two ice cubes in it, or three, as long as it’s
  “a prime number less than 5”
  it’s less about the cold than feeling right
and find a dandelion, picked from our yard together
  blow a wish, and bring me one of the seeds, and
  tell me how it’s a fruit, so that makes it a vegetable

shake in the coffee shop mornings we kept together,
  playing cards and gossiping, thinking about holding hands
  while sharing my favorite breakfast (was it yours?)
bring me an espresso drip from anywhere; it would all be just as special

crush the little moments you’d bicker about
  which of you would play as our drummer,
  or when you’d chide me for my pronunciation of “petrichor” —
    i was right, by the way
  do you remember when i thought a cobweb was just dirt and static?
    i was okay never living that down.
  how were we so playful?
so find me the dust in our house, our powdered history
  
boil and distill the hack nights and projects and dreams we’d hatch together,
  never needing to finish, always burning to
  we were going to bring the world so much joy. do you think we did?
we had too much to do. so bring me a poker chip, some mac & cheese,
  vanilla ***** and peanut butter whiskey

it is selfish. but anyways,
give me the tincture of those rituals
  let me live a moment as each of you,
    and drink it in
  so that when i pass from that penultimate casket,
  we all die together

i love you, and i’m sorry