Love, you ask too many questions.
Let’s agree: we are whole
—John Thompson, “Ghazal II”
I take apart the watch
you left here
a thousand times each day.
It does not help me
understand time.
I press our mirrors together
as if I could pin the infinite
but the glass
will not be rasped
back to sand.
I try to sift
the love from grief
the grief from love
and only succeed
in splitting my own atom.
Still, my body refuses to part with me
insists that we are an ever-changing entirety
declines to debate me on this fact
as I twist and spit
mind scalpelling
itself to bits
a vivisectionist bent
over a strapped animal
muttering
find peace
find peace
as she works.
And indivisible
under her knife
the reply:
there is no love
without the first love
one’s own
lost love
may you rejoin yourselves
may you survive
even when you don’t want to.