The Calculus of Skin Through Seasons

and, now, 

that we have sharpened the dull silver of math

and laid medieval swords limp upon our laps

may we find a set of sharks, washed up beside

the dumpster, the swells of water upon which they rode

resembling limpid desert hills came alive as lazarus

and swam before dawn, until the sun beat down 

on the lands as a kiln, and baked them still once more

and it is at dawn that i watch you walk the foothills

with silver rabbits abound, like metal fleas to which

the soft earth has proffered its bosom for them suck

teethed and to suck one another - 

and, now, 

that winter, after lingering, has left, pigeon toed and clumsy,

may the vesicant air breathe upon the hydrangeas, and may

those blistering flowers cluster blue beside the gazebo where

we have set many a night and drank until our eyes reclined

showing their whites and my yellow teeth, from which i spit

tobacco in your absence   -   and "nothing", though a word, 

though a reference, though a call though a beckon, refers 

to nothing - as any coo or moan doth. as any white hot

moon or stone does. 

and, now, that i've had enough of these pills these gills

these paper mills, i will strap leather legs to mine and 

walk out amongst the pebbled drive, and form a friend,

another tired man from the dust, only to speak with, to 

break bread with, to sing uvulas red with  - for i, too, 

will give him an instrument to shoot me down with,

 as a true comrade would to any suffering man in 

battle, legs and arms all torn in a field - on a boat 

on a boat o my darling emote - for you have been so 

sterile to me since we've gone sober - no effluence 

spilling from your swollen gravelly tongue as it did

dripping once above me below me  - for now it 

seems to have transferred elsewhere, into your liver

secreting ointment, purple and viscous, purple and 

thick and pretty was your dress any night long past - 

long past , long past, does nothing ever last - 

does no horse pass the beast before it on the track? 

do the demands of the body ever relax? ever, for a moment,

could i be unwanting?