You are at any moment what you are thinking at
that moment. Your I is both subject and object;
it predicates things of itself and is the things
predicated. The thinker is the thought, the knower
is what is known, the possessor is the things
possessed. 
              —Jack London, John Barleycorn

I wait beside each breath, there
is a chance I could believe
it later. The small ripple of water
lost is the cruelest kiss.
It is an arid belief wanting flowers
to bloom when the seeds have fled
in the frantic misery of the wind.

To grasp flesh as a breath, a dying
man propped on a pillow of hope.
It is pleasure dug deep in the
wounded red night, scissors well oiled,
a parting death to slip into. Can you
read the number on me?

The egrets rise like flags
of surrender, hands hastily
thrown up and shot. Yet I still
pray to you. The subordination
of the stone to the pond.



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