t h e   " y o u   a r e   h e r e "


:   m o n i c a   p a c e

1. Philadelphia

delineated
by what it isn’t.
it’s negation.
limit by limit.
and still they drown too close to me,
an osmosis,
the arterials of this city.
it’s all about movement
or
it’s all about inertia,
the hermetics of movement.
tic/heretic.

and I would speak of it as mine
but I guess it would be more like
the milky way.
holding together (in) a spill.
or bees gouging a hive
(your mouth, scaling silent, mine).
an embankment.
a curving backing end to end.
redoubling. conspired.
and we shall be cast in every role
like dice or the stars.
it’s a matter of eclipse
if not downright concealment.

and we are like stones, skipped across a pool,
an aquarium of shades,
nameless.
and neither
in the sneer of the afternoon
can fathom why.

caddy us together
just number us unlike
benumbed and mumbled
moths frenetic by a bulb
or ants on bricks
atomized.

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