All Things Being Equal, new revisions

It's been months since I touched this one. I'm not giving up on it yet. I won't show the changes as I have lately with the Ghosts poem, as it is too labor intensive and I am somewhat tired and depressed. Feel free to comment.

Let x = x ₁
Locked in observation
with laceless shoes and
flesh turning color in
a mangled ring. As in

the circus. You lay across
the hall, or lie across the lake
of fire bridged by roads cut
straight into the mountain.
You, me, the elephant in the ring.

The baby in the car, my bottle
in the sink. The girl left an impression,
barbed wire handstanding on my back, the ass-end
of a circus pony with wobble knees, sinking,
straightening,
sinking, and the finalé spills
clowns from the car like cockroaches, midgets and stilt-
legged giants, or hoop-waisted buffoons begging
the rain with wing-spread finches,
skeletons, held close
on their heads.

Let the triangulation of my guilt =	a	=	a + b
	b		a

The angle of the foothill
bisecting the skyline
would have been musical,
if not drowned out by Virginia.
Virginia, I remember, was
lost children out of Carolina, lost
to time and translation. Was it
Croatoan, Roanoke, Chowanoc, Eno.
Strip the music to pastels and feetless
grass.

Let contrition = F =	m a c = m v 2
	r

Scribbled into some student's private
journal, sketching mouths of caves in
Jerusalem. Into the gullet.
The curve is your body.
I'm drawn by what I owe, no more.

Let dissolution = S =	c 3 k A
	4 ℏ G

There by the waters of the Potomac I found
the coin tossed by General Washington, heads
up, good luck, and went forth with it
buried in my pocket. "Look," I glittered, but you
handed me a shovel and said, "Time for ditches
not trinkets," threw it back to the water.
Action and reaction,
equal and opposite.
Circles, circles, time goes round again.

You and I unseal our
openings, link up, link
up! Breath flows into breath,
the fetid into the
sweet, the rains into the
rains into the desert,
to till the untilled. "The
laws of entropy apply
only to closed systems," I
declared. Everything

that falls together breaks apart. In
closed systems. You and I and you and
I sealed up between, flitted toward equilibrium,
until one day, both of us equally cold as a colossal
squid, for many years fabled until caught off the coast
of Antarctica. We left the freezing deep, surfaced, opened
ourselves to decay, to destruction,
to closing.

Let defiance = F = k e	q 1 q 2
	r 2

The more expressed, the more unsalvageable,
scribbled in some student's private
journal.
Out of the maw.
The curve is your body, repelled
by what I owe, no more.

The angle of the foothill
bisecting the skyline
was musical
with the
sounds of
battle. Virginia. Virginia,
I remember, was for lovers,
and lost children out of Carolina. Lost
to time and translation.
Croatoan on a tree by the
marsh, and under, + Smith 4
Eva. They spoke Welsh and nevertheless
did their feet
ever seem to touch
the grass.

There by the waters of the Potomac
I found the coin tossed by General Washington, tails
up, bad luck, and went forth having sunk it
under the ancient dirt.
Appointed a locum
tenens to throw back to the water.
Wave, particle, wave, particle,
wave. Goodbye and
goodbye and goodbye. Just
like I told her. Time goes round again.
There by the waters of the Potomac

Let discomfort = Δ x Δ p ≥ h
Before they locked me in the single
cell, I swam through numbers that
were supposed to be yours. Opened
my mouth to exhale hello in

intoxicating breath,
alveoli ballooned
and burst, the buzz of
disconnection, my limp body tossed
on the small tattered vinyl mat beyond the bars.
It was early. You must have still been up.

Or you dreamt of the south. I never left
a drink on the table. The girl was made of steam,
the water scalding, shallow. I needed what you didn't have
within you to deliver, sinking,
straightening,
sinking, and the spilling
of the rain
on parachutes, hollow-boned
finches, held
close on our heads.

It wasn't anything,
shadows,
steam.
Those are pearls that were her eyes.
And you have plucked them out.

Let x ₁ = x ₂
Locked in the tank
You dreamt of babies in cars. I left
my scotch on the table. The girl ...
The angle of the foothill bisected the skyline ...
Virginia. Virginia. I remember, was lost to time and translation

Let x ₂ = x _x
feetless Croatoan,
more unsalvageable, tattooed in some private student,out, out now.

Let x = x ₁= x ₂= x _x  
The curve is your body, no more.
By the waters of the Potomac, only myths and wasted fortune.
Bury it, throw it back to the water.
Act, react, pardon, wave.
Circles, circles, time goes round again.