Cigarettes and pheromones
Calloused tips
and olive skin.
Coffee stains
on aching palms
One wrapped around a neck,
The other conducting tendons
tugging at rhythms
******* theory.

Others’ are raised
crying hallelujah—
Yours stuck
Stiff like soldiers’
or unsure anchors—
Lost like subjugated natives—
The Stolen Generation of yourself.
Just follow the Rabbit-Proof Fence, John—
hide inside hollowed boabs.

I ask you if you’d like some tea—
you look like you’d drifted off.

You said:
“Now why’d you have to go say a thing like that?
Why are you always assimilating me to your context?”