Refusing Beauty

There’s a casual note to this return,

a seasonal stretch across borders.

No thought of desert retribution,

the sun hanging longer, drier through the day.

I love you like everyone else—

equal to my hunger and contempt,

equal to the rigors,

the rhythms of remorse and neglect.

Within the metaphysics,

the reach for tribal sacrament,

I mark your vagueness a void—

as if divinity had been trimmed

to Asian oils, yoga,

the filigree of wrist tattoo and self-regard.

The future is dread of the past:

what crime detected, what debt invoked,

whose child lays claim.

I oppose you—

as a river crossing does,

as books piled for burning do.