Intensive Care

*

As if intensity were a virtue we say
good and. Good and drunk. Good and dead.
What plural means is everything
that multiplying greatens, as if two
were more like ninetynine than one,
or one were more like zero than
like anything. As if
you loved me, you will leave me.

* *

You (are the man who) made
roadmaps to the ovaries
upon his dinner napkin.
I(’m the woman who) always forgot
where she was—in a state,
in a sentence. Absently stirring
my alphabet soup, I remember
childhood’s clean white calendar
and blueprint of the heart.

* * *

As if friends were to be saved
we are friends. We talk to ourselves,
go home at the same time.
As if beds were to be made
not born in, as if love
were just heredity 
we know the worst, we fear
the known. Today we were bad
and together; tonight
we’ll be good and alone.