Get rid of the last letter from the word
I am either on the edge of this big rock above the water or
an ideogram on the beach on the cape twice removed from you.

Make a list of things you’re not,
like dessert wine and those weird dry patches
on pavement after rain.

I literally spend the whole day stealing your bored clauses and rotations.

The cadet in every play, I look good in that skinny air force hat.
You type with flourish. I stagger around the room.

The alveoli are the final
branchings of the respiratory tree
and act as the primary gas exchange
units of the lung.

I lost another section of my skin today, breaking
myself into smaller pieces while you expand in me like a fern.
I call myself an ideogram and you walk from home.