The Date

This time we’ll come gloved & blind-
folded, we’ll arrive on time.

With bees in our hair,
with an escort of expiring swans.

We’ll appear to out-of-date & out-of-tune
violin music, we’ll lie on our side.

Wearing rotting lotus behind our ears,
musk between our thighs.

This time we’ll be tied down.
We’ll cry out.

We’ll only smoke if surprised
by tragedy’s approach, as it noses closer.

This time we’ll fall in love
with the blood color

of the sunset as we’re walking home
over the bridge that takes us

between here & there.
This time we’ll forget

how ancient Sarmatian lions go on
bearing marble messages for no one

who can understand their sarcophagus language,
forget sloths who climb so slow

they die before mating.
We’ll grow improvident & stop believing

there was ever such a thing
as alone, such a hard

nail in the coffin
for one.