My Grief and Yours Walk into a Bar
And they burn as candles, eat the room’s oxygen—draw closer
Ignorant of being inside the joke and unable to cross the
cosmos
cosmos
Separating them. Bottom to top, things are built to entangle.
The flame’s crux, I learn from my daughter awfully late, is black and
empty, as today
The flame’s crux, I learn from my daughter awfully late, is black and
empty, as today
The doctor pronounces my plateau. Daughter of Elysium, fire-inspired we tread
Within thy sanctuary. Still, our griefs further
tangle:
Within thy sanctuary. Still, our griefs further
tangle:
Argue they’re misunderstood even while they swallow us
Whole. What is understanding but whatever the mind no longer
Whole. What is understanding but whatever the mind no longer
Slathers with longing? So my grief tells yours
At the bar. The bartender dries a glass and whispers, Pal I have no idea
Where this will lead us, but I have a definite feeling it will be
Where this will lead us, but I have a definite feeling it will be
A place both wonderful and strange. Surely we fit
The routine: in walks some salt-of-the-earth types, blind to their comic
The routine: in walks some salt-of-the-earth types, blind to their comic
Halos, and from a distance the spectators squint. Wait for
the punchline.
the punchline.
Our griefs perceive what we dismiss: the slight give of stage boards.
The delight from looking out, stunned, into the lights, unlike
an actor or a deer.
an actor or a deer.
The wages from not cooling hard in space, as matter ought
But spending—you and me—all our wax and
time and air.
time and air.
