A.I.

we live in a different torch

than the one i was raised in.

that wall over there used to be a door.

the lamp’s gone out, but it seems

we can’t burn up fast enough.

words we have belabored, scraped slop.

still. to write is to love the process free of the result;

the struggle, the plunge, the work of the work,

to unfold a singular universe

heedless of the open flame.