From 8 Equations

8. Pi Burned Alphabetics
Atomic Snowstorms in Left Handed Corners of the Mind
Circumference of Infinity & Where it Has Gotten Us
by J. R. Pearson

It's our winning way at losing that brings us here.
Things that survive a nuclear winter?
Cockroaches, twinkies & infinity

In time, rifles blossom in the dark

& water pounds voices from roofs.
Shadows would crawl into rocks
if the galaxy opened a wave in the night's lung
& we would think of nothing except time

not existing in the cursive call of violins

except your mother speaking thru background radiation
except the white noise of a whimper
except the music of lost charts
& blind notes scrawled on your hand in the rain
hum your lips numb as bleached sandstone

unfound in KOFA turn-around canyons
sing the sight of an octave stretched out beyond the eye
there's no word to suck the poison from a snakebit leg
no sound for destruction put in abeyance
we need more than threnody
& colored ice stirred into starshine
more than ribs curved back to the bow in wings
more than a sliver of saliva lipped to a figure 8
on cold palms warmed to a cheeks heat

when you touch me
my eyes pound with night like a bruise

your voice shifts with an oiled flame
my heart pushes night thru missing limbs
& your breath beats like an owl
I'm all climacteric in this one & done flesh calculus
boiled down to it's bare beginnings
of a bright tone tuned to a galactic string's risen voice