In this case no cacti nor wolves dart the place.
There are no trees,
no surf to cut the cliff
and announce the sky. This is not the wilderness
of place. We cannot go there together,
and yet, now, for a while, one of us must go
to sever limb from limb
our impulse to be more daft,
to amount to something
we can be proud of like an idea
in clear words and short.
There will be no confusion,
we say, and a ligament snaps, first at the tibia
then near the pelvis. We are on our knees,
our stomachs, then all our weight
is in our heads. This is how we will stay,
and stay, here in the wilderness.
Nothing says we will ever come out
and be with each other again.