Achilles is coming out of the hot tub.
He tells me to get a tattoo on my knuckles as he kisses the name of the accursed, sitting under the skin of my wrist.
It felt like he told me my true profession was poetry. Nothing escaped him.
Working this death squad cured my Meniere’s—
We are in this play together. He is the playwright.
Work on your lovers without me, Dearest, even if you are my partner.
They give warmth. I provide answers to riddles of the mind.
Dying men can hear ghosts.
I am your ghost.
I, Quine, in your
recursive dream of
The World now departing,
An old man is crawling into the hot tub.
At the end of your life—
You will see a water nymph who guides you to a river.
It is Pythia who once lived inside the first man’s worldly heart.
He asks questions. And I am him.
IF you cannot trust loved ones, consider the details of their empathy before you die.
