Symptoms

Symptoms

I yearn to hold a strand of light,
and a grave yawns like a hippo.

Bending
to sniff a flower,
I grow rigid as concrete.

I want to dream,
instead see only
the wrinkled flesh of my lust.

I go to honor the ones I love,
and mud fouls my hands.

Tears of sorrow overflow,
when I begin to laugh.

I stretch every ligament of wisdom toward
a branch of knowledge,

unwind every convoluted journey
of weathered understanding
in the orbits of my ganglia

to grasp an idea of life—
and a blade of grass cuts me.

The final trace of hope vanishes,
and out springs a presence
taunting . . . Let’s boogie!