I don’t know power positions;
I can’t teach sex, I eat stress,
Fate bears down on me
And reminds me of my
Flimsiness.

A stopwatch can’t see me –
My face runs sideways,
Flesh like interred wax,
Like a lit flame, cleaving
From the bone; I have
No time to keep.

I am not married
To anything except
What is relentless:
Palmed-off pages
That carry us
A little ways
Into another’s mind,
The charisma
Of knowing our
Nothingness, the
Schematic failures,
Self-awareness bought
In double-takes,
Try laughing it off,
Take a guess –

We, you and I,
You run the corporations
In my spine,
Prick my conscience,
Tell me what to write;
Great magnate,
Small wonder,
Sliced pie of
My mellifluence,
I wish I could say more
About war, poverty,
Things I have no right
To speak – so speak
Anyways – for my
Own sake? – the ties
That bind –
I try.