towards a unified theory

what we are comes of chance collisions,
encounters with flotsam—offal and plums

floating in a flood of language     we choose
what remains—the fantastic: your coat a sail

on the icy pond, you whooping and flying
on your skates as if caught in a griffin’s claws

the everyday: gossiping as we hang our wet jeans
on the line when we can’t afford the dryer

mornings are a salvo of  love promises,
afternoons we come undone, spiraling apart

in our bubble chamber, evenings we calm
ourselves doing mathematics on the fingers

of clocks       each day’s unspoken words
become our fluttered history, orbiting us

like the gold planets of an orrery (though much
less neatly as if gravity threatens to let go)

in night’s hallucinations we find ourselves
lassoed, one to the other