The Wafer on My Tongue

Have you ever heard a true story--

the kind that bat-hovers over yard graves,

circling the plastic roses

that outlast everything real?

Here's one: I lost my wedding ring yesterday.

The earth swallowed it up somewhere I can't find.

Do you need me to confess pathology,

to hand you a diagnosis like a party favor?

The golden bureaucracies of reduction

have already stamped me: normal.

File it. Lose it. Edit it.

But trust the nihilist instead,

the one on his knees, not praying,

just begging for a story worth the kneeling,

while crabs navigate their ancient detours

to the wet sound of your holy-water lips

smacking above the horn's long, shuddering climax.

Or have you considered that none of it matters:

that the serums have gone politely useless,

that Socrates grew tired of editing your tongue,

set down his blade, and wandered off

to haunt a different logical eternity.

The sun, meanwhile, will go wherever you tell it.

For now anyway.

It won't always be that obedient.

So inform the mountain it is heavier than Pluto

and lighter than the sheets you fold into silence,

that shroud the dinner table in everything no one says.

And I will continue to say to people I feel

the aneurysms of my tail-gated mind and

that I will never shut up,

especially during your stupid communions.

Tanzanite, garnet, and white gold--

I swear they were on my tongue

but has dissolved like everything else.