By Rob Dennis

unsettling: to admit after all our ifs and I-nevers, after all our singing about lust: certain borders become porous. I’m all amygdala up late extracting patterns from the noise: how a mind stutters, lisps on mania and grandeur and rangy you in your bronze repose.

suppose: before the night does: I can’t rescue you. Time again for yet another costume change? Your eyes: shutter; a full pantheon I become: a horde. Contains me: a knowable universe. It’s not so easy being out of character. A lack of. But you’re one, too: on you

I act out the enormity of my fantasy. A little rage goes a long way, Semele. Out of twelve: one, and you: the loveliest, the better best of Ios and Europas: never did they crowd my head with such amo, amas, etc., with such beating: a like: a than: an as. As if to open

a box or the floorboards splinter, expose the low & dull & quick of it. Inside: only trouble: an ache so loud the neighbors tremble. Rumble of thunder, dark drums, earth tremors: this aching gap, its maniac rhythm, the divine terror of this second heart inside me.