the list is short, Beloved
neither of us could decide
inside
the tiny digital meter counts down
tic and toc
a clockwork golem
plump as the moon

(god-curled like a new spring fern)

i have scratched away the days
faithful as a black-shawled widow
what did you shake into me?
some new you
some new me
the earth is filled with ourselves
as it is

(it turns, piston-pure towards your hand)

you, dragon,
blinking at the cliffs
and i, serpent,
wrapped around itself
how infinite we have become
and how bourgeois
how many scans in the mainframe
before the ink runs out?

(little cog and little gear)

you talk of desperation
at a table groaning with food
i know desperation
i met him at the door
his mouth was full of grass
well, you could not greet him
because you know not his name

(with tiny hypodermic fangs)

there are children sleeping in the gutter
while ours rest on silk and velvets
how can this escape you?
they've no fair shake, i tell you
only stones and
jacobs ladders
built of rusted tin

(this clot, this arc, this parasite)

and still i make my list