I choose
to believe,
for every hard problem,
there exists
a soft answer—
a balm, a sleeve
to salve
this raw funnybone,
my own
small brittle locus
of universe.
Every now
and again, I like to kick
my own ass, so that no one else
has to—
nap
with my clothes on,
so that it doesn't count
as napping—
insist
on a few
things, even though
I don't know how to;
like:
One—no value is intrinsic.
Two—any cage I feel fine in
is not a prison.
Two,
two and a half,
two and three
quarters—all our goodbyes are,
in an increasingly
finer and
finer
sense—gradual.