Many titles exist here, none of which linger long enough to be read.

      I.
I'm not there.
This, an obvious fact, I know, is.
Yet now it seems to present within its ubiquitously clarified lines
An epiphany:
(In the form of a question:)
How can I make comparisons
As if I were?
How can the handshaped hearts
Pretend machine-manufactured sameness
Of operation?

     II.
We cannot, yet
If we did not
No one would call us human.
So we say white (or invisible,
even to us) lies,
And it makes us
Good.
Because the handshaped hearts
Beat, and have aches
And growling stomachs and growing pains,
And if they had hands, we would need
To hold them once in a while.
(Or more often.)
For an even keel.

     III.
All of us know how it goes.
[Click here for personalized translation of this stanza.]

     IV.
And it is only when we need the lies most
(In context)
That we call them out.
How defeatist, how suicidally tangled
Are our inner workings
In themselves
In the best and worst of ways.
And humanity is this –