Ad Hominem

The Poet:

         Fugitive lung, prodigal intestine—   

         where’s the pink crimp in my side   

         where they took you out?

The Octopus:

         It must be a dull world, indeed,   

         where everything appears   

         to be a version or extrapolation   

         of you.   

         The birds are you.   

         The springtime is you.   

         Snails, hurricanes, saddles, elevators—   

         everything becomes   

         you.   

         I, with a shift   

         of my skin, divest my self   

         to become the rock   

         that shadows it.   

         Think of when   

         your reading eyes momentarily drift,   

         and in that instant   

         you see the maddening swarm of alien ciphers submerged within the text   

         gone before you can focus.   

         That’s me.   

         

         Or your dozing revelation   

         on the subway that you are   

         slowly being   

         digested. Me again.   

         I am the fever dream   

         in which you see your loved ones   

         as executioners. I am also their axe.   

         Friend, while you’re exhausting   

         the end of a day   

         with your sad approximations,   

         I’m a mile deep   

         in the earth, vamping   

         my most flawless impression   

         of the abyss   

         to the wild applause of eels.