the desultory gambit, delivered

with the momentum of a trainwreck screeching across

the taut line of your body;

perhaps the ache could have been soothed,

the pestilence stifled with poultice,

but now we trade extremities as if

they were tattered playing cards, warm

from being held and made filthy

by the oil of another's unskilled fingers.

So... first poem in a while. . . how is everybody?

6.?.12