Our souls too big for us,
our laugh, hands, sex too big for us,
we’re coming, dragging excess skin that looks,
in dim light, like flowers. Coming
to tear you down whenever
our eyes close. Coming,
when they startle open,
to have failed. That’s what need is now:
grabbing and then checking to see
what it is you are holding.
We want only the bold and shapeless,
only the rare as in bloody.
We don’t know what it is.
It rings, though, and can afford
to be made of glass. The people around us
sharpen slowly like teeth
in a mouth so crowded
it must remain open.
That is what we must stand in.
The dark rooms and the bright.
The little girls and their absence.
We’re coming to smell the way people
touch one another once they’ve left
everyone behind. We’re bringing the symphonies
we can finally mount onto our violins.
We’re coming to be so nearly pierced
by buildings that miss us all around. Soon
we won’t know anything
but that thrill. We’ll eat
and not know what we’ve eaten.
We’ll lie in dark liquids and whisper to you
of our swelling.
