We Two

Easier than brain science or rocket surgery, after all,
for a weak-minded me to foolishly believe anything,
false-crack me constantly out of the nowhere, knocking me into anywhere,
to a spot such as this, say, where now there’s no light, time’s come unshaped, and terrain’s unmapped.
With the power outage, the little licks from the gaslit stoves
tickle along the corridor to us with a memory-stamped aroma of all things Korean cooking.
But that tiny bit of light’s no help, you see, the trickle of what we know it as
is turned around to a flickering visible darkness I’d heard about before.
Not a black hole lying that hoards all light, but some opaque inferno,
to which we two have come – you know you’re always with me here, ne? –
to find not a midnight calm, but a midnight shimmering anger over all those gut punches.
Staggered across the Pacific, barely on my feet – because on top of you, time-lag’s a bitch –
you’ve fooled me more than twice, and that over-blow of shame has struck me out,
while giving me a closing acquaintance with the man who dropped you on the mat.