MENTALITY

Do not think 

of changing your mind 

regarding 

where we should meet 

or what you want 

to eat

as capricious 

or easy; think of it 

as practice—

greasing the groove

for the one 

indestructible, 

changeless move

to come.

*

Although 

no neuron touches—

but shouts  

only "yes/no!" 

to—its neighbors, 

somehow, 

together, they dream 

of a point man

who speaks for them, 

who listens, posits, 

then explains 

the mechanism

of their uncanny 

existence.

*

My mind is like 

the crowns 

of these trees 

which are proud, 

symmetrical, 

dense with leaves—

but which 

nevertheless allow

the wind 

(feral, inconsiderate

old friend 

that it is)

to holler through 

and rend them 

from their 

sycophantic branches 

any old time 

it pleases.

OBJECTS IN MIRROR ARE CLOSER THAN THEY APPEAR

The truth 

about distance 

may never be 

determined,

but over the course 

of a lifetime, we 

have learned 

that now 

is so much 

more demanding 

than belief 

in the future 

ever was—

how 

our movements tended 

to leave a smudge 

on the juxtaposition

of objects 

we loved—

that we did not know 

until we knew

that here 

was the heaven 

we'd always wanted:

the open sky, 

the cadenced plain, 

the words 

(which were 

never quite part 

of ourselves)

all dissolving,

and all 

of the history 

we’d pursued 

until now

in the frame

of the rearview. 

EQUIVOCATION

To become nothing 

but a blip 

in a system 

filled with circuits 

would seem 

like a step 

in a worsening 

direction. But

how do you think 

your intuitions would flip 

if to become something

was to know it, 

whole and private

from the inside,

and to know a thing

was to cherish it 

for the span 

of just this moment—

which, as with 

all previous 

and subsequent 

moments, also consists

of a circuit 

filled with blips

getting broken 

or switched?

HYPERTEXT

"Don't get any 

big ideas," they say 

as if concepts 

had a shape,

took up space,  

put on weight.

"Don't be so 

hormonal," we snap 

as if phonemes 

could cross 

the synaptic gap; 

as if we weren't 

wordlessly

speaking to ourselves.

*

Perhaps experts 

minted profane words

for sex—

for violence, 

infirmity, and

betrayal next—

not because 

they must be 

discussed, but 

rather, to act

as talismans,

so that we 

wouldn't have to 

contain them.

*

With the web cache 

of hindsight, 

we can now see

the brilliance 

of the 20th century 

poets 

was to mishmash 

their analogies

and to formulate 

their metaphysics so exquisitely  

backwards: 

plainly, ideas 

are not in things; 

they only exist 

as the bridges 

between them.

EVENTUALLY

When you were little, 

you were taught 

that time 

is divisible, 

that someone would be coming 

to pick you up

later. 

Even now 

you can't seem to rule out 

the possibility 

of conditional  

rescue entirely—

after all, 

you do not want to die

frightened; 

you'd rather go 

bitter.

* 

The question 

isn't whether 

or not 

a heart comes 

to be broken—

or even 

when and how—

but rather, 

how 

uniquely? 

How beautifully 

scattered is the 

shattering pattern?

This must be the measure 

by which we earn the right  

to call ourselves

extraordinary 

individuals.

STAR PHASES

1.

Each instant, undaunted, 

a new future rises, 

then falls, exhausted 

through the present 

into the hole 

of the past it imagines.

2.

If I'm sure of anything, 

it's that stars don't "align"

without the scrawny perspective 

of the bleary-eyed night-worker.

And if they ever touched? 

That wouldn't just be 

a disaster.

More like 

the industrial 

factory that makes them.

3.

Somehow, what once was broken 
may be briefly reassembled 

at the death of the sun;

eons of discord, suddenly inverted,

could become

a pop song. 

And a pop song 

could be a life 

in its sum—

bursts of transient 

color, sound, 

and temperature; 

so far, you're 

not less—and hardly

any more.

COUNTING TO INFINITY

Even in doing 

very little, 

every little life 

must accrue. 

In the space 

of time 

it takes a whale

to blink an eye,

uncountable unseeable 

ecosystems are moved,

great galaxies 

implode

long before their constellations'

names become known,

and you—every step, 

at once takes you farther 

from the home 

where you started

and never any closer 

to the place you meant to go.