We shake hands in accordance of priority, you and I,

(academic, professional, of relative importance)

and time slips into an ellipsis

as we paint words between us.

priorities seem irrelevant

as emotion befriends word

(allow one to define the other),

innovation sculpted in the throat

and hung in rows of blank sheets under the shade cast by

the roof of our mouths.

They rip by our words,

and cough colors,

splattered into space around our lips,

art crouches to fit between artists…