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In a perfect world, I unpeel for you
shedding layer upon layer of superfluity:
sheltering fancies, better bartered glories
leggy adverbs, second hand news
The core of me, we are certain, is static
a me that won’t meander, panic
flee to the familiar, or the panderer’s ruse
Yet there’s smoke on my hands
and a husk in my voice
and a void which is fluxsome yet present
unnameably as a dancer’s shadowed shoes
You’re always patient on the peripherary
as though you could become, by sheer concentration
the glass in my hand, the space to the left
into which my unspoken words slip through
The mistake I believe
lies in the notion
that there is anything else
between this next breath and you
