An anthologist from Berlin asks me
for poems new or recognized:
ideally, they should amplify
the union of love and death.
I’d like to suit her, since I’m dying,
but love is a master from outer space
restrained like a text message
and no one can afford to say more
so I keep losing and losing
and can’t afford anything
so let me lose “and” once and for all
like everything else, one of these days.

Queueing for monuments
we follow love like aerobics
on television: and three,
and four, no “and,” remember?
Nor once, nor twice, other words
are empty under others’ pedestals.
This is where we jump the wall
but still can’t come into our own.
Forever in the open air.
Bread and salt.