E d w a r d S a l e m —

Fullness

Behind eternity isn’t

more eternity. Nothing

lies in wait. Maybe you

think of it as a vacuum,

a void at the center of

the universe, a dot

that went all ways

at once, an asterisk,

footnote to everything.

Nothing is the Godhead

that gobbles the world

in one fell swoop,

but has no anus.

When I Retired

I imploded into a paramecium. I slithered

to a place where I was with other Jainists,

sun lovers and hedonists, people who kneel

to place a lei around the neck of an ant,

get stuck in half-hour orgasms like pigs’.

Sex with the earth was smiled upon, despite

harm to plant life. When I closed my eyes,

I saw the names of God twisting in the soil.

Everyone got their own Dome of the Rock.

Fight

Hamas is not the cartel.

Roll the window down, smell

the humid sea air, glue smeared

on cracked concrete.

If I use pliers to stretch your nipples

past the Apartheid Wall to Cairo

or the thunder behind the darkened

sunset, should I expect you’d propose

we hug, chest to chest?

.