The First Ionic Sin

That great grammar of ambivalence
collides with my Gutenberg.
What this permutation takes is a slick

poetic structure erected in one sitting.
I hate to see it shelved. I hate more

Johnny's dilly-dally. Will he ever come?

Take our mutual animal: down but for its absence
facing up. Take the wind: all anatomies,
then the map's equations. Take half a country.

That pledge takes allegiance. I whisper "Take me
or take the remainder." Johnny answers—
                            a half classified math.