Like anything living and wet,
cochineal, vermillion,
the marrow that unhinges
or unclasps the way
only liquid
can by slow erosion or
as we used to like to say
does X or Y like only a man can—
enacting the sombre, fluid
homosequentiality
that only young men sure
of everything but sex can exact,
without loss or compression—is now passe
lonesome, disarticulated
but still a practical idea,
a boon for evolution, like arched feet:
aggregate, substantive,
as ridgelines are for mountains.
I’d call it a backbone
if the metaphor weren’t already broken.

No monophenomenon
a caldera is the difference
remaining not minus opposing
exertions, magnitudes
but plus or times
a negative deafening manifold.
It’s really quite extraordinary not to end
up with a crater every time.
Orogeny has no siblings
and its offspring are corrupt.
There’s a distance to circumvent
recursive and precipitous,
but let me try:
a boot, like the body, begs to be used.
I’d get back to basics
but the sum or product
of my disseminations
resembles water on the moon.