Goodbye 17

Grown from conventional purpose

in order to rename over there

as “across state line,” in terms of survival,

Dante calls X a way to maintain courage.

& from the end of this dispatch I would’ve been a good wife

hemming distances, a little, every day,

without one wholly thing the matter.

O moon! Whatever victim of etiquette I turn

out to be, valued as customer of or friend to,

when recategorized for this present time,

my skin & skeleton are of as much

consequence as the grass that never grew under my feet.

In the skirmishes of things, is my ally

equal in measure to the I of me?

Or are we paired solely by image?

Ran short of noun-like qualities,

both of our names X-faced and

rent of whatever postwar commonalities

fooled us into individualistic days:

my good looks head for memory.

Memory, I’ve been wreckless with survivalist fame.

What other efforts are there?

The nose gone, then the jaw.

As the monetary equivalent for a decade,

fitting to join myself judge or

faction, law hath nitpicked

the grass of the first field

for the alien light of common sense.

They’ll see your heart evicted.

I see your heart evicted.