All blank, all white, inhaling jellyfish,

coughing up thylacines, my best intentions

entangle, disentangle, bleach to silicon dust.

Scrubbed to translucency, my equilibrium fails,

both scabby knees bleed.
Below the exit sign, you sit, head in hands,

ringlets loose across the nape of your neck, almost

prehistoric, with neither gold chain nor pearls.

Your pen-point idles, uncommitted, no longer blue,

abandons vacant Cartesian grids.
A sketch. Our awkward pharmacology. Three

knocks at the door: counterposed, an illusion

of sirens, fire alarms shaking bamboo blinds,

flashlights, parquetry. Was it something I said,

failed to mention, never considered?
At least my passport is valid. I know

a dozen popular songs. My data have been

analysed: finally, the statistics are complete.

In an atmosphere of collaboration, I offer you

tiger lilies, coconut oil, analgesia.
Beyond our continental drift, the numbness

you covet, a licence to misfold mountain ranges,

to encourage clamber and trip and tumble;

each success, every loss tallied on fossiliferous shale,

the search and destroy we run together.