• If these words are glass
  
• then they might be looked through
  
• as a slide in a microscope,

surprised at its own capacity 
to bear a piece of life 
under the smothering touch of the slip.

What a twist
for the kiss of death
to be made of slips and slides,

or is it slides and slips? 
And what role do you play, 
reading as you do

through the glass lens,
sharpening it, your gaze, moving
closer and closer,

pursuing an intimacy that 
will only preclude,
and will articulate its refusal 

in body-coloured blurs 
that are too close?