Entropy

I watch my hands on the television screen

               and dream death as a better alternative

to being held like the birth

               of a girl. Oh, holy witness. For all I know,

everything that happened

               only happened twice. I insist that they don’t understand,

that there is no you

               here, but still, my dreams tuck the you

into their silhouettes. An unmistakable, perpetual

               you, yet another man, the first man, who believes himself

to be God: generous creator of life,

               but never thief of it. Because of this, I swallow

knots of dandelions to tear my spine. I vow

               to take a knife to the body

of the sea and fist out its age-old answers to the universe,

               to the wars and dying sun and warming ice.

Who deserves it? I was asked, when

               what I wanted to know was What awaits?

For a body, like mine, with skin and nails? I want to believe

               that my horrible disorder will not always

                              belong to me. How, still, I find myself possessed

                                             by a primordial need —mistaking deterioration

                                                            for destruction. Time’s arrow: how it never leaves,

                                                                                               how I act out both ends anyways.