eleven ways of looking at us
(with a nod to Wallace Stevens)

1.
gemels: a pair 
of bark-sheathed 
trees fused 
time-grafted—
all of our prior twistings 
shivers in the wind
cannot change the fact

2.
I don’t know you are she
you don’t know I am he
therefore 
how to even speak

3.
now dear give us a kiss
I mean lean in 
accept a steadfast 
near
occupation

4.
spun round since birth
pin-the-tail vertigo 
no impediment 
to you finding your jack
me my jenny

5.
our tongues scrape linen
incapable of escape  
we are inescapable

6.
bonnie-and-clyde
on the gallows    
had the bullets not flown

7.
why two hoods 
for a semblance of distance  
when one would suffice

8.
knowing you are just like me 
or knowing that knowing 
will ever be unknown

9.
a pair of circles that osculate
our inevitable geometry 
is how I prefer to understand it

10.
we are not the why   
     they are
out in the gallery 
vibrating to the presence 
of our absence

11.
two hoods 
are infinitely 
better