Please don’t text me pictures of the sunrise from the parking lot.
Keep your steel town to yourself. What is your steel town to me?

Bad enough I share your love of suburban purple clematis.
At every triple leaflet I repeat your evil name.

Love is the law that binds us to the wounded and wounding.
I am obligated by love; I am bound, albeit abandoned.

The evangelical contingent, that God-fearing consumer group:
Angels in the Hard Rock Café! That’s not an angel, it’s an ad.

In every furrow and knuckle you confess your childhood trauma.
I have to talk to my enemy; you’ll find me a grave man tomorrow.

A grave man on the morrow but a blithe one for tonight!
You too will betray your family in order to better your life.