As/Is







8.21.2006


Abandonment

No way to explain
the facile, indefensible
thirst that saps dry
any discovered reservoir
for fear its contents flows
elsewhere. You'd be frightened
to learn that the stricter a dreaded
outcome of a given body, as in
beetles to leaves of a crabapple
the more the bugs abound—
and their scouring.
Odd that I should so perpetually
love a woman, that I can't eat
for the literal physical pain of her
absence, and I withhold the name of her
whom I love now, worried that she,
lovely, distinctive, light heart
is another strand of twine, binds me
to my own burning effigy, ghost
of habit and fear.