your sense of direction flips
into the once puzzling barbarism of
other species. they exhibit resonance
partially and partially
cover their first mistakes
by swimming even more
seductively toward you.
you become the subtlest
of oxymorons
as your daily
thought and feeling
grow short and endless
and impossibly more supple, ready
to alight on steepled sand
in lamplight. even though
you live in a shanty by the sea
you no longer
dream of fragile roads
on islands of mythical syntaxes.
you still climb two
sets of stairs, but
insects have blurred them.
if anything goes wrong
you resort to the simple device
of standing in bright light
unthreading far-flung peninsulas until
the letters run from your skin.