Pump Up the Valium

Take a few steps & you’re in another world
take a few more & you leave that world behind

You must be living somebody’s dream

& the afternoon arrives in time for a change
with motors left running & it’s just you & me
& no tears, but maybe the memory of tears

              which may be the point of it all

                              pointing due north

& you’ll get to say
“The day has come full circle”

              & even if it hasn’t we know it’s true enough

We fuck & think & wonder where the time goes
when it isn’t here

                              & off the coast of Okinawa
an albatross flaps its giant wings
              creating a breeze that travels for days
over countless miles of heaving corrugated steel
                              driven by underwater turbines
across vast churning Pacific maelstroms & lulls
unimaginable
                              just to get here
                                                                where it brushes gently
                                                against your cheek