a state incompatible with life

you are flat
I didn’t expect paper-thin

a pulsing strawberry at Christmas
touch pads forming your fingertips

on that nebulous grey two-dimensional sketch
you and your twin reached to one another

but you hid exception in your heart
each minute three beats behind then four then more then

the paperwhite narcissus papyraceus thrusts
from bulb sack each spring

but you my nine-week bloom what will you be
milk-crescent small and dense nothing at all

when I next lie flat searching
the screen from paper table

now the other tumbling in the expanse prods me with finished fingertips
and I don’t know if it wants me or is looking still for you