we will start
with something obvious something
like why is love simply |||||||||||||||?
why can be an adverb
a noun an interjection
& probably other things
it’s shifty this one
why begs for a reason
re: Hachikō the Akita Inu who
waited every day
for ten years at the train station
for Hidesaburō the professor
after he had died
or re: the electrical socket’s look
of surprise or dismay
depending on where it is

is on the other hand is
a state of being of existence
a continuation
re: Hidesaburō could not
cup is in his palms
do you see the conflict
of interest here?
re: think how your eyes slide over
these words how your brain makes
sense of these words & wanders
how your bones feel settled
into your skin
think of how some draft
has brushed your face
now or at some other point
Hidesaburō is the opposite of is yet

love is both noun & verb
re: both my darling
& let’s fuck both a score of zero
& how you might feel about the beach
in Old English lufu & lufian
do you see how love changed
how it evolves?
re: Hachikō the Akita Inu who
waited at the train station
for Hidesaburō the professor
before he died

while simply is easy simply isn’t fickle
simply the adverb loves to adjust
& correct to make
too fine a point of things
simply is only & mere
re: your soul and its formation
re: how your soul will either blink
off one day or be chucked
into some other flesh
forgetful
of the precarious
nature of doors
re: when he died
in front of his students
Hidesaburō the professor felt
himself loose and disappear

even though ||||||||||||||| implies synthesis
||||||||||||||| is a noun that is
both detour & silent promise
both indirect route & I’ll show
you ||||||||||||||| toes the line between
Big Sable Point & Eddystone Rocks
do you see how ||||||||||||||| folds onto itself?
re: the moment your mother puts you
down for the last time
re: Hachikō the Akita Inu waits

of course it ends with a ?
a ? marks an unknown puzzle
a ? lays the chain link code
between your hay-packed tongue
& your heavy hands
do you see how a ? is exactly impossible?
re: the secret fear you’ll turn
into a ? when you die
re: Hachikō the Akita Inu died of cancer
re: Hachikō the Akita Inu lives
with four bamboo barbeque
skewers in his stomach
because he is a dog
& the skewers
tasted like meat

Nicole Mason is currently an MFA candidate in poetry at Western Michigan University and is the poetry editor at Third Coast Magazine. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Midwestern Gothic, Slipstream, Roanoke Review, Atticus Review, and others. She lives in Kalamazoo, MI with her husband and their three ungrateful dogs.