Still, I Don't Regret It

We hung the hammock between our necks,

nestled the letters and the sea shells and love's

other portents between our marked heads.

So naturally, when we broke each other's orbits,

the floor fell away, and we hung like limp thumbs.

The sun is in the bathroom mirror, dancing on its gallows.

Did you see the candy spill across the cosmos?

That's how it goes. In the end, we come at each other

with baseball bats, and the beatings continue till we've

given all we have. Only when we're crawling like the soldiers

at Normandy, clutching our organs to us and wincing through

pipe bomb dreams, do we realize the truth: That to love is to die

beautifully, and far too briefly. To be shot from a rifle

and explode in a blaze of wonder. To sail on as a bullet

shell: hollow, flaming.