“Distance is the most important thing in the doings of the heart.”

–Guy Davenport

 

Beneath the swan-necked lampposts

even the happiest are lonely and see

the light as prey.

 

Unchaste trains sniff in

from distal sinner realms

like grazers from the musk fields.

 

A little blue bag

of tears clutches her mother’s

pearly hand and when

 

their train arrives a wave

lifts their forms

into one, based on flowness.

 

Distance litters the sky

above the cathedral station with a few

smutty snowflakes. Later, coitus,

 

that temporary, violent

overthrow of the day’s

status quo. Dozens of us

 

one-of-a-kind strangers

and the loved ones who come

between us.