IRL

My friends all ask, but don’t they know

I’ve always been this prone.

It’s like a lullaby, the inevitability

that the butterfly of all butterflies

would land this close,

close enough for me to touch –

then die, when I finally try.

All echo. All bassline.

All iridescence banished

behind the ghost-screen.

Embodiment of the little twitch

I thought might be my own.

No – I got it from movies.

And you are from movies.

More than movies, even.

But still, mostly movies.

You’ve got that grottle voice

I love, slick as chlorine,

it coos me right to sleep.