6

(Stranger)

you’re stuck in the over-stretched skin of a stranger,
your face too tight, your balls two sizes smaller,
you’re quite unapproachable in this state

the stranger knows who you are,
wants to be you, doesn’t know how to
become you, or recognize himself,

he is his own anathema

double-fucked-plus-ungood
I’d say, both halves of me shit outta luck,
without the soul that dreamed me
to continue imagining me

this must be how dissolution feels

unbecoming even as I begin to forget
which one is the stranger.

run up and touch the side
run up I dare you
dareyoudareyoudareyou…

RUN

Poem by Shane Douglas Keene

READ THE SERIAL NOVEL BY JOSH MALERMAN