ever, we are strangers

she told me love is a snake in the grass waiting to
destroy you, so I took my mower & cut a path of
naked earth all around the world. if there is no grass,
there are no snakes.
 
she told me my tears dried up long ago, so now when
I’m sad a plethora of dust accumulates & cascades into
madrigal air, like blind Ewoks falling off a cliff.
 
she’s way over there & I’m here; I can’t get there & she won’t
come here. when I die alone, she’ll still be fixing dinner.
 
I conceived a love story of a patch weld hero & a convenience
store princess, but it quaked on a foundation of vagaries, so
I wrote it on the wind.
 
she gave me a satin pillow & told me the kisses she wrote upon
it would sing concertina dreams, but I didn’t dream. she must
have used invisible lipstick.
 
she admitted to being a rude temptress. she prowled her own
jungles nude as a sensuous cat, enamored in the eyes of
obdurate soldiers. desirable. unattainable.
 
she is ice. I am fire. If I approach her, she will melt &
wash over me, & briefly the steam will testify:
what fools love has made us.