is suspended in agar in sweet cream in
magma in lard;

"Nobody knows the system better than me."

We talk most days, but today he sounds far worse
than he’s sounded since they died.
I think he should call our old shrink. I say:
"Call me back after you call the shrink."
He hangs up, waits ten minutes, calls back.
"I did it," he lies, "but her service
says she’s away. What do I do?"

Someone posts a rant on the perils of passive voice.
Someone else replies, in defense of passive voice— 
snidely, shyly. What does it mean, body of the text? 

The whole man has no corners. He curves and curves.

        All down the coast 
were regiments of jellyfish (men-of-war, 
         they often congregate at docks); 

Two who had loved in each other’s eyes met strangeness.
Wonder at loss. Distance.

Desire beyond, human-imal it seems,
that whispered body-being. You.

Can one think, in sunglasses, in the park; think
with the children playing and the adult banter,
and someone smoking; and experiment, in ink,

Has my face caught up with, surpassed, my age?

It was just a walk down the hall
—the teacher, my mother, and me, skipping—
to another world.