In the Late Style of Eros
Loneliness is a female shark
who circles the tank repeatedly,
feigning interest in aesthetics,
before finally eating the male.
The pleasure’s in not yielding
to mere lust, or despair.
Why bother telling you
you look like a man I loved,
when in fact you are that man,
or at least were, in the
Pleistocene era of big hair?
Four score and ten minutes ago
I looked at your photograph,
so proud to know you,
as if you were my famous relative
when in fact you’re the stranger next door.
O, mealy-mouthed cliché.
O, sweet-smelling catastrophe.
Welcome to our life
before it was lived,
dust-bowl epic eliciting
no feeling but awe.
