The Ratio of My Delicate Sensitivities to You

Gimme your best shot – I can take it –
I won't stop until the sweet or bitter end.
But darling, afterwards, I must suspend
our operations. No vacation from this
one necessity: to entertain no less than

three half-hours to every six half-minutes
I derive from stimuli from you beyond
the slit and silt of each perceptual afflatus:
always takes that long to settle down,
uncrate this bursting entity that I'll have

packed with you until it’s all but cracked
its lid. Creatures riddle – writhe – alive –
disturbingly amorphous and ridiculous
beneath the grid of each experience: I have
to let them out, alone, and sit them down

and calm their frightened moans and help
them parse their most unnerving traits
until the worst parts of their disconnected
hearts – those squiggly enigmas! – can abate:
it takes a lot of energy to funnel through

the mystery: collect it and inspect it and
subject it to the hellish kit of my proclivities:
respecting all my delicate sensitivities.
Which, dearest, right now need to be alone.
That’s why they won't pick up the phone.


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