A MAN’S BORDERLINE TO OVERCOMING LONELINESS

there is familiarity,

a twinkle in our eyes for unknown places

that beg a birdsong to settle

for one of milky eyes or murderous ears.

a chalice or wine.

I don’t think I know the crevices of insanity well,

but it sure looks like a jagged muscle

from a mouth tilted in the position of a rig-saw.

you leave the ninety-nine

and come after my body,

measuring slabs of it with your eyes,

resectioning its tissues with your teeth,

cooking it with spices from the internet.

& then you see

that you have cooked up a ghost.

it’s a white coat carrying rashes,

something you call letters

or a relic of it

that soon becomes songs.

you bathe them in your spittle

and give them a home in photographs

or tie them to a group of wintering bluebirds

and in electronic papers that are all apparitions.

calories wasting & eyes singeing.

you go to the kitchen to search for lost energy,

sleep and dream that I became your neighbour

and woke up to ninety-nine retweets.

Source: From the Isolation Issue (September 2020)