"leaves scuttling spirals over pavement and grass
skyscrapers breathing
traffic signals whispering
steady hum
deafening roar
the silence of a city bus loping past
and the present laid bare under future's giddy scalple"

--excerpt from a Sharpie poem on a bathroom wall, c. 2002

You have until February 23, 2123.

This may seem like a long time, but even the most hopeful prognosis has its flaws. And I have to be completely honest--bombarded by invisible galactic subatomic rays, my logic has developed serious black holes the size of infinitely expanding love poems. But I refuse to believe a word I'm saying anyway. I realized a long time ago that I will have to learn a whole new language if I want to ignore all the sentences piling up in my head. So, object follows verb follows subject follows. So, it's creeping again, you feel it creeping up on you again and there's not a thing you can do not a goddamn thing. The dissolution. The coming apart. It was a good run but now the molecules recede and the black holes open up and your logic snickers and orders another whiskey on the rocks please. Later you tumble to the urinal and stand there and piss and suddenly there are all the words, everything you couldn't say, every letter and syllable foaming up around a rapidly shrinking blue cake of disinfectant. "Time's Running Out!" One flush and it's all gone, again. What a waste what a waste what a waste. But the piss does not feel sorry for itself, so stop your goddamn bellyaching. The piss just sits there waiting to be flushed, the best goddamn poem you ever wrote in your life. (She's there in the other room now and finally it hits you how much you missed her, how much you will miss her, how much you still miss her. You remember smoke in your lungs and international flights. You remember waking up in the middle of a fire in the middle of the night in the middle of a life and she was halfway around the world and she was gone for good and she was not yet here and you remember it still like yesterday and you remember it and you want to) flush yourself down too. Molecules and syllables and passive conjugated verbs. You sway and swirl and rub your eyes in disbelief and finally it hits you how everybody is diseased. Everybody's eye is twitching. Everybody's standing there scratching their eyes out. And if they're not then they're standing there with both of them shut nice and tight because who wants to watch it all foam up around disinfectant blue and then flush away for good?

(You feel it creeping up again. The dissolution. The coming apart. Chemical composition retreating, undoing itself. Disintegration. Disease. Only this time, you think--this time, it's for real.)

"Soon we will all be comfortably the same at last, in peace.
United.
Equal.
Dead.
Homogeneity reigns supreme."

--from The Last Poem (February 22, 2123)

All I wanted was a little more time.

But then really, ask yourself: What would you have done with it anyway?

(My eye is itching again. When the bomb finally drops, I will make myself stare straight into the light. I will sing Roy Orbison songs with my last contaminated breath. I will finally see the true meaning of love. I will finally write all the sappy poems you always wanted from me. They will rhyme. They will make sense in several languages at once. You will understand that I loved you as well as I could. You will understand how desperate the final hours can make a man.)

A whirl
A swirl
A swirl
A girl
A swirl
A whirl
A whirl
A swirl
A brown-eyed girl
A black-eyed girl
A whirl
A swirl
An empty whirl

Honestly, nothing has changed since that day on Pennsylvania. I still stand there on the street with protest signs and desperation in my eyes. Trying to save the world. Trying to save time. You know, I pretended not to recognize M---- on the bus the other day. I hid myself in a book and more lies. The next day I took a different bus, and there she was again. What does it all mean?

Nothing, Orbison says. Where to? Where to? Where TO? he cries.

There was a diary they turned into a book they turned into a movie. Is this art? All art is somebody's diary, the bus driver says. Just depends how well you dress it up. There was a sticker on the bus with a graffiti tag. It reminded me so much of you. There was a conceptual artist who rode the subway train and looked out the window at the tunnel walls rushing by. Is this art? Is this love? Is this a lie?

(You know, I saw M---- on the bus the other day. Is this art? At one point she stared at me with wide eyes. I hid myself and pretended not to see. I acted out of habit and an effort to discourage impolite behavior.)

All I know of love now is escalators and buses and subway trains. I see people from my past dropping tokens, buying transfers. When I finally die I will catch a bus to hell and every stop will be another human being I have hurt. They will stare at me and I will try to hide. When we reach our final destination, it will just be me and the driver. Another missed stop. A never-ending route. A looped succession of itchy, angry eyes.

Dear diary, it's raining tonight and I've curbed my consumption and my credit is ruined and she's in the other room. Could it possibly be more purple than this? Drunk again, the sound of traffic, cars moving over water. Buses moving over water. The ammoniac stench of pride. The color blue. But I know, under the earth now is a subway train and one day in another life I will finally catch it at the right stop with exact change in my fist
and it will roll on through to 2001 and 1995 and 2123 and 1972 and some kind engineer will blare Roy Orbison over the public announcement system and I'll finally let myself cry over you, and I'll finally let myself dissolve into you, and I'll finally let myself dissolve over you.

A whirling spark
A circle of light
A moment
A breath
A spiral flight
A whirl
A swirl
A swirl
A girl
A swirl
A whirl
A whirl