Irrelevant. Irrelevant.
A joy of my invention,
engendered and gestated in
a polycarbide bell that rings,
persistent as a nightjar’s trill,
as Pseudacris crucifer crucifer’s pipe,
at the strike of my mind
advancing on the thought of you.
Impaired, I cannot see the sense of how
my shrill and tinny timbre might
speak anything profound enough
to draw you near.
The lack of limb I must account for.
Vast flights between we two I cannot scale.
But suppose a pose, a fond exchange,
a cleverness of thought, might shape the crucible
for your own mind’s reagents to conspire in,
inspire you to reciprocate. But even then
deciduous affection falls like teeth of mammals
grown too old for fairy tales,
bone and ash to soil and loam lain fallow
‘til a new admirer cultivates attention there:
a memory to eradicate, a notice to exterminate.
