as a conquest

you hold water and are as real as
your words that flit
about the page—a something
I feel inclined to drink of

the knowledge is worded
the truth is I do not know
how your tongue would make a sound
cooperating with sticky lips
to please all eight of the nine senses

twelve months out of the year
we play each other
thoughts
tallied through various passages
of time
so our existence feels un-mute,
traversing the scape
I have failed on—

to get it
is possibly to have gotten naught

but lost that high
plain breathing; your
expiration / inspiration

I must learn again
for the first time
an infant
whose old soul
has forgotten the way
to walk.