I am adequate and full of love
I am safe in the hands of my enemies
I love the hands of my enemies
I am capable of desiring without harm
because I am safe and full of harm
I am an absorber
I fold myself over the backbone of utility
I am a lover not a fighter
We all must make this choice
The leftover charcuterie
from the English department job talk
is all we need for our feast,
abstraction thin-sliced by abstraction
and offering up its glands.
I am a creature meant to endure,
I am meant to absorb the world
and measure its accumulation.
I am a taker,
I am a mercury thermometer,
I stretch to fit each new ache,
I wait for the imposition,
I love the imposition.