Capture the infinity of distance between two men in a jar. With a damp resembling
a season that is always passed. A space between the beginning and me threatens to close like a jaw. In the jar a rag of a voice
like a pilot light burns away all the oxygen with one greedy whisper. Speak:
is always. In the jar. Capture. Two men.
Convex messages of glass. Dreams spilt like a rib cage. Of poking holes in the lid. A season of infinity of two men.
II
The first man to love the stars thought they were teeth. I prefer to think of instead. If candle. If one
for every man’s face I’ll ever touch. If burning is the consequence of one gas inside another.
The first man to love a man was instead.
III
Come inside.
Tell me I’m beautiful.
IV
I’m still learning the genetics of rage: which chromosome accounts for the biting of the tongue, which accident of base sequencing
births the brewing of a thunderhead. Put two men alone in a quiet and you’ve committed a violence. I believe this. I really do.
V
Speak of two men and I’ll show you the consequences. Speak like bones whittled into weapons, cut the memory out of my body. What I really mean
is that every origin comes with an end.
No I don’t.
Speak. Into weapons. Pull chromosomes apart like you’re ripping two lovers into a memory. What I mean.
Two men. I really. Your greediest whisper.
If every star was a jar that could hold two men. If every man could hold me like the convex of a jar. If I began and I didn’t have to hold the consequences. If I began with something other than a genetics. A brewing. An instead. I could be beautiful as a storm
settling the dust. I prefer the dream in which I exist beside time rather than under it. I prefer
the version where no origins, there just is. And that’s enough.
Heath Joseph Wooten (he/him) is an MFA candidate at Northern Michigan University. He is an avid collector of cassettes and other obsolescences, and you can find his work in or forthcoming from mutiny!, Lammergeier, DEAR, and others.