Soon, We Will Give In

The Commander says even if you think

it’s God crouching on all fours—shoot him.

You practice entering a building

knowing that in the near future the ruin

will remember the house.

A student studying a great

text, you learn that love is like war

and war a case of amnesia—each an

argument against faith.

And so you turn away

from the open window, the street below

jingling like new money, and a heat that

never subsides, thinking that it would

have been better if you had two lives and

could start over in the next one

strong enough to have your own way.

Like a truck packed with explosives

the Commander says that: what the world

will take it will keep on taking.

A detonator, a timer, a fuse

we deepen into each other, knowing we

have entered that small, accidental

permanent company of one another.