My nose.

The year

you learn to

worship it. You,

me, together in the

year of same differences.

It’s the year I become unbear-

able. The year I finally get the

cut that accentuates the year. Year

of the crag, the watermelon slice, the

conk, proboscis, beak, schnoz. Year of

the nasal voice. Year of the nasal flare. Year

of aromatic discernment and inhalatory revelry,

of dressing for the nose, posing for the nose, tonify-

ing with languorous pleasure, like the worn boot of a

god, the nose. It’s the year I lose friends to my nose, job

opportunities to my nose, the year I catch sight of my sens-

uous noseslopes in the inner-outer edges of my binocular vision

and fall so toxically in love we run away together. It’s the year of nose

sex. The year of nose prayer. The year the nose finally leads the way as it’s

begged to for years, the year of mourning for all the years we reduced a god

to begging. It’s the year of sniffing nectar and smelling bullshit. The year of

flattening by finger one nostril to expunge the other. It’s the year of deviance,

of a nose as sure of itself as a rock. It’s the year I go cold on you. It’s the year

I go warm on you, reddened by every vessel gone dry by ugliness rushed

again in a flash flood of blood. It’s the year I see you with my whole

face. It’s the year I see you seeing me and I like what I see.