Who lost, what found?

What found, who lost?

The mystery conched

in the mouth of the Sphinx,

in a world-spinning complex

of lost and found,

hide and seek,

a series of trespasses breaching parameters

wholly invented to keep us trespassing

on grounds of suspicion and intrigue.

You lose dead skin.

Hair follices take to the sky in ghostly wisps.

You excrete today’s breakfast

to make room for lunch,

and inspired by tapeworm hunger

and gripping whims

voyages are undertaken

to pass the time

which goes nowhere

slow and fast

in alternating rounds.

Bidden by the theatrical sport

and physics of living,

you enter a time-tested equation:

1) you find a stranger,

2) you become lovers,

3) you lose yourself in the stranger-lover,

you burn calories (they are lost)

when engaging mouth to mouth

in hi-def slo-mo with the stranger-lover,

three days come and go and

4) you are gone, the stranger’s gone,

loss becomes the header and title,

and that’s how you find

5) a new storyline in which to lose yourself since

6) a loss is a loss of course of course.

This the way of the world,

the simulcast walkabout of being

lost and found

within the limitless bait

and swallow

of consumptive erasure.