in mannered speech
about how
space
goes on forever—as if
the distance between
our pores weren't increasing
in tandem
with those galaxies;
as if
you and I weren't reading
two different pages
from the same book
aloud, while
estrangement took dictation;
as if that "we"
I just mentioned
didn't exist
as a precondition, but only
as a variable
which could simply be
factored out
of the equation.
