Why are we tempted (and why do I ally
myself with “we” when I can only mean
myself with certainty … while certainty

Maybe the moon is made of ice, not cheese,
And that’s why it’s so frightening.

At the bay’s edge and day’s end, we comb
the shore for beach glass, clouded grains
of clarity among the ground-down,

I got off my plane in a strange country
And saw you standing in the airport
With a blind smile, your eyes like diamonds,

Professor Felicity Harmonia
Taught the seminar in High Fidelity:
“The problem with Stereo … ” I can recall

Because distance becomes tumescent in the heat
the haze erases buildings out of walking range.
We’ve considered walking as far as the backyard

Because water and sewer mains are destined
In corruption to flow together
Toward death's vast leavening.

What the sun does to a flower,
Leaching its all-precious

We were having a picnic by the river.
We watched it land, their glistening ship
Fat as a Buick. The aliens were suntanned

By silence he meant it's bad enough
To squander words on paper. Don't waste them.
Along with your breath, on air. By exile