so, my darling, you’ve shown me your lesions
and told me they mean you’re going to die
well you don’t get to feel so special
we’re all going to die
it’s just that maybe you have more precise information and belief
concerning your own demise
but that you’re going to die
(as if that makes you unique—as if!
that’s not what makes you unique)
is not enough to drive me away
you’re going to have to try harder than that
if you’re going to be rid of me
in the meantime
you’re for me and i’m for you
you are my lifeboat and i am yours
it’s a sort of magic
board me and i’ll carry you upon the ocean
riding over the crests of waves
though if i start to ship a little water
i will need you to bail
(Copyright 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
my son, who is still in his teens, has said
that when he gets into a serious relationship,
he wants it to be with a low-maintenance woman.
dad, i want a low-maintenance relationship,
he said to me at dinner at our favorite diner last week.
i said, son, there’s no such thing—you want that,
get a cat, or an inflatable doll.
my lover is sweet as honey, smooth as fine wine,
but she is filled with broken glass. she knows this
and so do i. we know the care we must take.
(Copyright 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
“The most trivial secret of the non-human object we behold in nature connects more closely perhaps with the profound enigma of our origin and our end, than the secret of those of our passions that we study the most eagerly and the most passionately.” – Maurice Maeterlinck, The Life of the Bee