when the contentedness slips up my spine
like a slide rule
(you are happy once, you are happy twice)
it's time to review the measurement:
the step by step abrasion
that makes me willful and inchoate.
when i was this high
(gesture about hip-height with the hand)
i was buried under prose, line by line the words
came pouring out of gnawed-on pens.
then here
(a little higher now)
the words found order, found reason,
found a logic in illogic that made them rhyme
and gave them rhythm.
and now i wonder, for the height i have now,
what i have given up for this viewpoint:
coordination, fascination,
or even just a grounding of emotions.
but the slide rule keeps sliding,
measuring my mountain of subservience and lust
and counting the times that you come:
i am happy once, i am happy twice.