Mispronounce pounce

It is perplexing

to imagine death

as the end of life

because

death is all life is

in its perplexing end

*

I can’t hear

my poetry

over the clicking

of these words

and of the voice

that reads now

which blocks me

from me

by being you

*

I am terrified

alone

and wet with wild

wrong

and this is the only thing

we share –

that we are all terrified

of our aloneness

in a world that was built

from everything

but will split one day

from everything

maybe tomorrow

when I have gotten to know you

but just barely

for I am too shy

to tell you my name

and yours sounds nice enough,

though I say it wrong the first time