TRANSIT OF MERCURY

At the beginning,

these were indistinct: the cortege

attending me my every astral night.

Before the sandy lake of light pollution

sounded its coarse tongue

across the seductive bottom of the sky.

Now you’re the one alluring planet

I hope to reach, before we plunge

toward our separate gravitations.

Never having had affairs in order,

I might not try to save you for the last.

Run, brief page, lest I should catch you.

I’ve got a heat-seeking missile for heartbreak.

& so do you. If there’s another side

of the sun, then you must hide there

in less than your underclothes,

emitting every molecule of thermal funk.

Thereby, create some other world that I

can be disclosed to, adamic, flayed of this sullied

atmosphere. Promise to take away all my air,

astride me, astraddle, & hurl me to oblivion.