The laws that laws of joy may squander
Like anything living and wet,
cochineal, vermillion,
the marrow that unhinges
or unclasps the way
only liquid
can by slow erosion or
as we used to like to say
does X or Y like only a man can—
enacting the sombre, fluid
homosequentiality
that only young men sure
of everything but sex can exact,
without loss or compression—is now passe
lonesome, disarticulated
but still a practical idea,
a boon for evolution, like arched feet:
aggregate, substantive,
as ridgelines are for mountains.
I’d call it a backbone
if the metaphor weren’t already broken.
No monophenomenon
a caldera is the difference
remaining not minus opposing
exertions, magnitudes
but plus or times
a negative deafening manifold.
It’s really quite extraordinary not to end
up with a crater every time.
Orogeny has no siblings
and its offspring are corrupt.
There’s a distance to circumvent
recursive and precipitous,
but let me try:
a boot, like the body, begs to be used.
I’d get back to basics
but the sum or product
of my disseminations
resembles water on the moon.