extracts from DEAR§
dear—
we’re kept at arm’s length because that shared rib makes the rush a dance on the asphalt that hammers out our one-two sudden stop
we’re kept at arm’s length because a new heaven and new earth gives us too much to fight about
we’re kept at arm’s length because what other measurement is warranted but the stretch of brushing fingertips against the static of overheard fluorescence, the late-nite cadence of all-you-cans (when you can’t and no one ever has before us), our meetings accidental but never less than exquisite, our familiars etched in glassdust because we’ve no right to speak like this, our dialect more comfortable with us than we are with it and we’re kept at arm’s length because scripture demands it along with the streetlight solemnity that’s held every time we spill out of illicit clubs, our sweat immaculate and reeking of blood, tap water baptismals and sometimes I think every motel room sinks down to the cellular, every one of them, dendrochronological records under no vacancy eye sockets, I think each room is still with us, prisons all of them and us in them, those delicate baggies turned inside out to retrieve the very last of paradise or at least our closest approximation of it, no we won’t have the real presence there, not on any of those execution grounds
we’re kept at arm’s length because we’re close enough to count