The Steady Hand

Does your tenderness still ache with the same light-heartedness?
You’ve forgotten.

You’re forgetting?

Hey, I’m talking to you:

the air destroying civilization

your eyes wet in the night

the whispered concessions

it rots me, the memory.

Hey, listen, hey, hey!—

You can’t ignore me like this,

I used to slow my breathing to match yours—

Hey? Hey?

No,

this will not be how distance becomes us.

Life is a series of refractions;

we cannot lie parallel to the world.

Though we have diverged, two lines in the darkness,

still we do not equal mere tangents off the circle of our interactions.

We are finite; we are perpendicular:

We will each come to meet the inevitable point,

the crashing site, the line-line intersection, the finish,

and yours shall not be mine,

nor shall mine be yours.

Dust

The dyed exhalation of the summer,

the glorious July murk

comes hazing through our lungs

storied with each breath—

The gas prices always rise;

like the dust we will not settle:

there is nowhere we will not go

and leave our trash behind.