Hypnosis

I think last summer you said the word

in almost life-long drawn-out time,

perfected the gesture with your hand

you’d started prehistorically that snapped me

back, as though we had agreed.

And all the times that I was high, not

the exceptions they seemed to be

but regular rhythms, etherized.

Perhaps I should more patiently describe

the snapping’s familial lingering – as there was

nothing quick or precise; it more reminded me

of a glacier I read patronized in a book

     of geologic phenomena.

Because if you were standing close,

at the fortuitous time, you would hear

the generational crack of coldness breaking

free, and see the separate chiseled

     facets gliding by.

“Hypnosis” first appeared in Verse magazine, Spring 2007.