the possibilities of real mental damage,
brought home by a third-storey evening
on a damp chair, sweating through one's guts,
clenching one's teeth at the screen
and the sound of a computer.


Skies will be dramatically torn open,
but nobody will escape.
Planets will pop like frozen balloons,
but nothing bold will use
the stunning force to found
an orchestra elsewhere.


We will bedroom together
more desperate and ape-like
than we ever imagined, in a sickly lull
between the great collapses,
clenching what remains of our tongues
between what remains of our teeth.


And now the damage will re-imagine
our mouths; we will kiss with molds
re-made by events of which we will never speak,
we ourselves being those events,
dousing cancers with white wine,
hot leprosies with darker red.