Distinct

[mortician]

Separate hues are we
Naught distincts us from the moss
save eons of family tree

The world is queer and we are nothing
but shades of fag.
Distant faxes of the first shocked beginning,
of the innocence of Eden
Before we knew from rags

We are distinct, be only so many
faces to go around.
We echo each other in flesh and
sympathetic neurons and
doppelgang the hundreds among
billions who share a fellow mask.

We are crocodiles before the chrysali--
soft scales shift to silk
burst out jag-tothed butterflies.

Distinction ain't destiny
Our sames so much we need names--
Signposts of self and even those
we need two or three

or five

or six

Pseudonym and alias
Title and suffix
We lie snowflakes and scream
sour when our differences are wrong.

Distinction breeds dysfunction when
we thump pages on our spines
Ecclesiastic clatterings jangle
in broad minds and we can't hear our
own brilliance through the staggered noise.