rendezvous

it’s stupid the way we all try to be people, isn’t it?

yes I see your fingers, nicotine-stained the same

brown shade mine are with this nervous habit

this oral-fixated tic, this shaking need to castigate

our poor throats with scorching smoke

to ensure only the right sounds come out, to

make our mouths into coyote traps and snare

the limbs of our trickster tongues.  we shadow-

puppet the walls and run from the monsters

skulking in the negative space where our

innocent hands meet a light too unsparing.

let’s sneak out past the end of everything,

shall we? dash down the alleyways where

the streetlights of sense and wisdom can’t

penetrate, tangle our least numb nerves like

mycelium entwining in tree roots.  strip naked

in the alien dark, crack dirty jokes and whisper

our most unspeakable secrets into a rusty tin can

which we will then dropkick over a wall into

some snobbish gated community, into the kind

of party everyone attends to pretend they’re not

alone, where our deepest shames will echo out

and cause a scandal. then in the frail dawn we

can make our final confessions to each other, fighting

to breathe through the laughter- you and I are

nothing but cosmic jokes with God as the punchline.