we can favor someone through a dirty shirt with eden-fresh hormonal traits the comforting tang of goat cheese chocolate and threadbare pages finger war conjecturing the destructive scale attack strategy of a certain touch whispers of abc’s backward recital of the enemy’s national anthem irrepressible sigh patterns noah’s troubled waters napoleon’s imperial rages hitler’s mutilated faith flaming twin towers morality collapsing a mattress too small particulars we could no longer recall on occasion the composed moon swallowed up the exhausted sun in the slashed-across mirror after a night of wasted paces and x-ray imprints ants swamp inside familiar tubes building a nest in our ovaries a dark rainbow hangs upside down over the bridge of our nose sand seeps rigid corners of our eyes melting over diaphanous decisions the queen is nowhere to be seen with the looming removal of the blindfolds we lose the ability to love one another discernment lurking in front of our antediluvian orbs -- photo by Dominic Blewett