1

nothing

said

nothing

again

2

I opted out

of the shot

tried putting a stop

to those start ups

3

facing off

only chafed

getting involved

solved nothing

4

so I performed

a sort of

spiritual

fact-checking

5

on all manner

of nothing

unnamed

& named

6

as if that was it for

this list of demands

crafting words

afterwards

our bodies for

forty days

we’d surrender

them at night

not giving them

any more mind

instead doubling down

on all we believed

to be our souls

half-roused

from that good

neighbor’s lawn

what must have looked

like the end of the world

but in a word

not

this tic is not like us

or this cooling of skin

the tongue glued to the thickest of lies

un-inclined to sic endings, incite

still, we are not into being

returned to the dustbin, undeterred

or sifted in w/the rest of the content-less

idealized by some urn, heroically fit

so cured of our deathliest leanings

the tang of rot no matter how stored

we are fingered out from the grace-laden

then resurrected, entrusted to the ether

rather, we’ll near those trees

we’d first learned to drift & sing

notes led out the oft-lingering

their destination ever-guessed (at)

I answer

an ad

for an-

other

word for

desire

but end up

more in awe

of what’s

drawn me

in now &

how when

I’ll see some

thing new

in myself

I am still

left