All you need is a another me
another me who will love you more
another me who will understand you better
another me who will care for you more
all you need is a another me

If we must confront death this year, let it not be due to neglect,  
Choking and gasping for breath,  
While the virus attacks our bodies  
Because some failed to follow the rules.  

If we must face our end, let it be from natural causes  
So our names do not become yet another  
Mark on the wall of the unfortunate.  
Oh, deception, take the vaccine!  

If I had cherished them sooner, I would have grieved harder,  
But in truth, they never loved me wholly, so I forget their kisses.  
The touch I could have treasured, the smiles that should have resonated—  
It costs too much to remember  
And too little to spark the love within me.  

To consider them freed by death is painful,  
You may think my coldness was my only way of loving them,  
Yet my warm hands remind me that I am alive.  
You couldn’t see my face as you faced your demise.  
I know they wish they had.

it's a matte mauve morning
after an oumami sleep
flamingo columns of cumulonimbus
melt in misty miso
and the mushroom moon
a sunrise ceremony
over a murmuration
of monet moors

mouth your memetic communion
let the muttering brook mull for you
let it carve its memento-mori into mud
like memory foam

and that might be enough
to make a misery of any man.
but not me.
How about you?

An ardent young
woman captive

in a suburban
basement, now

reported missing
but I’m here

though you don’t
see me, no matter

how loudly I bark                                      
your real name,

sing your secret
needs, or tear

the scab off your
stifled yearning

while you sleep—
I am the obscured

object of your
aching night,

the blackest hole
in your desire.