by Bruce Boston
If you've heard the stellar vox humana
the untuned ear takes for static,
if you've kissed the burning eyelids
of god and seized upon the moon's
reflection, disjointed and backwards,
in the choppy ink of some alien sea,
then you know how sleek and fleshy,
how treacherous, the stars can become.
While the universe falls with no boundary,
you and I sit in a cafe of a port city
on a planet whose name we've forgotten:
the vacuum is behind us and before us,
the spiced ale is cool and hallucinogenic.
Already the candle sparkles in our plates.