I send you the video of goats eating
a wheelbarrow load of tomatoes, weird
eyes half-closed in ecstasy
jaws popping the red skins, pulp running
into their beards. You say it reminds you
of your last date, the one who smelled
old, how it would be hard to love
the speckled folds of his neck, the sad
sack of his scrotum as you imagined it
softly tapping your thigh
when you fucked. Dinner out
in a nice place and he ordered
something with tomatoes, told you
about his loneliness between bites and wayward feet
beneath the table, any wife
long gone who could keep
his manners in check.

O friend, call the man back. Never mind
his red-stained shirt, the tremor in his hand
inching toward yours. The mountains have been falling down
for years, ancient waves are beating
the same shore senseless
morning and night, and all the stars
we see are dead. You and I are marching
into the void, and who knows what form
we’ll take in the resurrection – solid, liquid, gas, goat – nothing
is promised. Your date may hardly
remember what desire looks like
without the right glasses. He may call you
by his dead wife’s name and step on your
toes when you dance. But doesn’t
everything hurt?