You are no angel fitted with
the brass mask of
hardihood

nor are you robed with a coat,
stone of something
noble,

but how I'd purge my sins
without a second thought,

risk speech dousing my tongue
like a newborn convert.

How it might have just never
gone nuclear,

who would've thought
a collision so profound it becomes
annihilating?

I doubt my heart would abandon
to consort with reason.

The doctor mapped stars
on my palms to seek a certain future

as though my life had never
heard presumptions
of bruised bones and...