From A Finished Basement

In our arteries and eyes, a hundred lightbulbs
throb like drugs. The furnace:
a permanent mishap.

And up in the dusk, there is lucid debris—
a conduit, a wire mask, a swastika
of corn.

Boy- and/or girl-small, we’ll find
some horizon, an intricate faking
in which to lose way.

Here we are, not speaking
or dead. Here we are
or dead.

To what do we owe this
forgetting not to kiss?
Not that any given face is not afraid.