We Are Not Like Other People
& Do Not Need Them

The danger in living
is why we file our nails
instead of our wrists;
why we label things away.
Why when we think of mass
transit we think of concentration
camps, we think of people packed
like oysters in the little shells
we're allowed, the brine & hope
of forgiveness like fortified shorelines
or western ideas of what it means
to be forsaken.

I often think of your dark beauty,
waves a forbidden song
against the planks of a pier
no one thinks about: the face
in the yearbook, the scuttled boat
& its peer, the sigh
announcing him/her.
Blinded we reach
for the insouciant moon
to pull it back.
The whole thing can go off course
but memory is bold.
We hold on for dear life
& row.