Like all my poems, 'Negotiations' has several sources. It deals with aging lovers and the often silent deals they make. Thinking about bargains made me think of The Little Mermaid and that made me remember something I had just read about the incredibly complex process by which tadpoles (actual little mermaids) are somehow able to reabsorb their tails and fashion their future frog legs.

We sleep together in the dark but confuse light with love.

clarity need not be equivalent to / readability. How readable is the world?

The crowd is made of little gods, and there is still no heaven.

The fear that all this will end. The fear that it won't.

Thus drivers inching southward will see the phalanx of birds heading west as one spontaneous gesture.

I know you by your willingness.