So Eros, upon arrival, lies back like a cat
and feeds me cigarettes.
A tandem swoon is not to be expected,
yet
how many surrogate cylinders
press against the tongue before
proximate dissatisfaction is achieved?
Charcoal’s bitter.
Farther out in the thickened night,
carnival colors rise and fall in two-four time.
How well I can read the requisite
to and fro, he owns the name
but I have played him many times before.
He is forever innocent and does not remember me.