the collapse

believe in a sky both

silver and bruised, in the

dizzy spin of the sun, and believe not

in true love but in the possibility

of it, and then wait for the
rain to arrive

fall between the bodies

of christ and pilate
 

breathe in the smell of

new-mown grass
 

breathe in the smell of corpses
burned with gasoline
 

the walls you build are temporary

at best, and your hatreds are all cliché
 

ask this woman next to you

in bed for her name
 

tell her something

both small and meaningless
 

and what those of us born with the

knowledge of space and of distance,

and what about the ones who

learn it by force?
 

do you ever get sick of being

defined only by what you’ve lost?

 

pick the point in your life

where you think everything

began to fall apart
 

tell your wife exactly when it

was you stopped loving her

 

wallow in the pain you cause

just like it was your

last day on earth