Rather B in Bed With You, Girl

For exactly one decade
I have made a habit
of smoke-toughened
into leather-lunged
bouts of caffiene-induced
delusions and other
observations
from the broadcast
centers of the monoculture,
usually staring out
at parking lots,
sometimes at mountains,
sometimes the sea

During these years
of nicotine reverie
I have sent myself
naked into the world
as a statement
opposing me,
seeking you:
A pretty
silly exercise

Especially since
now I have found you
Especially since now
I have acquired a need
for reticence,
a hermetic safety zone
from all of that
attention seeking
and performed
self pity
that is the act
of writing poetry
in a public place

This need for privacy
I believe is healthy
since the heat rising
from the cement is getting
more than just intolerable,
it's positively escatalogical,
as are the stormy arms
of August

These days to dive
below the surface
into the womb of water
as lightning strikes overhead,
just a brief swim to exist,
below the waves,
as a teasing of fates
in case an electrical charge
were coming,
is everything:
I'm in happiness,
beyond its natural limit;
in hope, beyond its most
fearful flight