There’s a lot of people you don’t know.
Then there’s a lot of people you don’t know
but have heard of, and know their work.
Then there are some people you’ll start
to know, know a little bit of, some
of the time. Just. These people know
this or they don’t. These people like to flit,
and know this. Or they don’t. Now
then, and then finally, but – a few others,
yes, of course – then there is yourself,
who is an other, a person people, of
course. This one you know
on occasion, and when the weather is
right, when the sun hits you like that
off your friend, her eyes and her tongue,
his laugh and its wake;
when the wind smells like it used to,
and you always knew that that was the best smell
but had never put it to the test.

Put me to test.

Then you know at least part of it, that
person. He’s you and she’s there, but so
what. Can you feel it like you your yourself,
and do those other ranks concur,
or is the map a listless thing,
walls up like sundown,
hazy in our blue light,
no stars the remedy for a feeling
this split.

Take her home under this
aegis and play the part. You’ll soon get tired
so that’s the point. No one will undo
your sensitivity; he will not fall into your
palm tree, nor shake down the coconuts.
This paradise extends to you self-assured
leeward, only,

propped up under each other’s semblance.
Of Self, now that’s the one. Don’t have
to hold on too tight. There are those that
would relinquish control with outstanding
clarity. You would skim all rank and creed, mind.

You will propel. Function. Initiate. Burn
and bleed and see. Nothing too complicated.
Or serious. Just people in their pile ups,
ego echoing with a submerged song
stifled under the submissive yawns of yesteryear,
provokes us all to shape darkly in each other’s
cupped and accompanying skeletons,
nestled in our animal independence,
skin-deep misty in the sighs of
our mutual opposition.

And then there’s love,
which goes all the way back around and
circumnavigates that lower half.
Just like that.