I'm going to read something in a somewhat lighter vein I'm
sure you'll be glad to know.
This is called Negotiations.
"Someday, if someday comes, we will agree
that trust is not about safety.
That keeping faith is not about deciding
to clip our fingernails exactly to the same length.
Or wearing a uniform that boasts our unanimity.
Someday, if someday comes we'll know
the difference between liberal laissez-faire pluralism,
and the way you cut your hair and the way
I clench my hand against my cheekbone
both being possible gestures of defiance.
Someday, if there's a someday, we will bring food.
You'll say, I can't eat what you've brought.
I'll say have some in the name of our trying to be friends.
You'll say what about you?
We'll taste strange meat and we'll
admit we've tasted stranger.
Someday, if someday ever comes, we'll go back
and reread those poems and manifestos that so enraged us
in each other's hand.
I'll say, but damn, you wrote it so I couldn't write it off.
You'll say, I read you always even when I hated you."