We may have had a choice just not known it.
The churchgoer says, Oh heck, the agnostic, God damn it.
Spring expresses reluctance
but we feel released on our own recognizance,
of what we’ll be tried and probably convicted
we’ll stay in the dark like lesser angels evicted.
Afoul of laws known and unknown seems fundament
but so are kisses following breath mints.
I try to say I love you but it’s already said,
let’s forget we never met.
Of it all, fall into bed or compost pit,
rising like smoke, dying fire given a poke,
it’s up to us to make of the most,
to hack out a garden, plant a fence post,
hurl ourselves into each new task and pleasure
with varying parts abandon and measure,
playlist of Bach, Thrasher, and Thelonious Monk,
giddy drunks and peevish, plummeting funks,
hotel wake-ups, in-the-alley shots,
heart-thrumming signature, accidental blots,
wanting never to lose what we miraculously found
then smashing it down down down,
a shirt that can’t be washed because it has your smell,
burning your letters, telling you to go to hell,
to hold what can’t be held,
to be strongest, fastest, firstest but to yield,
cried-apart eve, laugh-patched morn,
the memory of your beautiful snore.
Every arrival delayed, departing
rerouted, strangers to ourselves and everyone else sparking
from the awful I-can’t-go-on tension,
luminous with yes-sexy friction.