clouds
pink and blue smears
go over my head
like the moon
or calculus.
i long to float up there
where i could eat eclipse and crackers
and differentiate my thoughts.

don’t you find it odd
that, sometimes, in order to answer a question
you need the opposite of the thing itself?

i am my own reciprocal.
i hate liars
but i hardly ever come out from beneath
my own silver tongue
or my solidified sadness.
even my body is my own mind’s conjugate
but the limit
as i approach everything i know
from the side that loves and the side that loathes
is ultimately me
staring through this restaurant window.

my breath steams the glass
and i miss the final moments of sunset.
“Get off there,” my mother says
“it’s full of germs.”