In one version of the story, Which perhaps is the one and Only truth, a rib was pulled Out of me to create you. Here the story doesn’t say Why. Did I ask for you? Was solitude then as heavy As it is this evening?

My heart swells in and out Of this gap in my ribcage, (just as the tongue keeps Licking, once more, the gap That was once filled with Ivory) seeking you.

Other sages, this time seated On the opposite end, intone, In their telling of the story, That I already possess you Inside of me, a small benign Cancerous dot hanging like A bat inside my white belly.

Yet why doesn’t this hunger vanish When I touch myself wishing It was you touching me There, everywhere?

Then others, as if one can Believe such preposterous Nonsense, claim that in the beginning There was no I and no you, that we Lived in the same body, were the same Jolly body thumbing our jointed nose At a jealous god, who logically split Such a mirthful creature into two.

Supposing this for a moment is true, It explains why we keep entering and Leaving all those airy rooms with a piano, Searching for that perfect music which We perfectly well know doesn’t exist.

However more simply, And biologically, I came Hurtling out of a tormented You. And from then on I am Compelled to seek you out, In spite of the ways you can, And do, wound me, in order to Enter you again and again,

Seeking to bite the apple, seeking To submerge in earthy darkness, Seeking that momentary music Heard just before we cleave, Seeking to bring forth another You or another me.