Signed, As Ever

Someone next door is still knocking.
This getting comfortable is the business

of thieves. A straight hanging, a cornered
wall. Which do you think would win

in a duel: preponderance or nuisance?
Opportunities for absurdity and polish,

not like one would be missing anything.
If you could end up anywhere in the world

how could you ever leave your room?
What tapestry of promise could undertake

an arsenal of cigarette smoke and ten
pounds? The answer: a pretty well-wrought

tapestry. My negative capability exceeds
me, no wait, I mean proceeds. I am still

waiting to exchange my circumference,
this box inside a box, torqued in preparation.

I am ready for the white walls you’ll say.

today is the longest day of the year

1.

once a stain has been treated incorrectly there is nothing you can do to reverse its outcome. sometimes the only way to treat a stain is with hairspray, or so i have been told. this is common knowledge among women in their 50’s who have spent a lifetime trying to erase things.

it is believed by some that the days follow each other for a reason.

2.

your mother thinks that rugs last forever, my father says to me, as if he feels badly that they don’t, as if only it was possible for that expectation to be met, he wouldn’t have to be frustrated by it and she wouldn’t have to be so disappointed. everything is always just an outline for something bigger.

3.

i forgot to mention the dream:

a house underground, an old victorian one with many levels and we have just moved in. there are to be strangers living with us; something you have failed to mention. on the second floor, a young girl with big tits and brown hair; in the attic, at the far end, a man who collects records and lets the spiders put their webs above each crate. i went above ground and outside to search for you and instead met a hunter who spoke to me only by the light of his lamp about how the land was being overrun by fulsome admiration. we were on the edge of something, a cliff, a canyon, a reservoir, something which at night made you feel like you could just walk off.

Concatenation

Repetition: a trying, a formula

or

Heightened panoramic uncertainty



A talking about; a talking, a bout

or

What is left to imagine?



I can not read what you are saying



Serendipity behooves progress,

as is clumsy this space—

(a real pale by comparison)



Repetition: a trying, a failure

or

Another drink, another drink, a cheap rhyme—

(a form without form)



I asked if you were from the neighborhood and you asked me which
like a nomenclature—

(a source to be cited: clout)



You are painting the round,

an initial left small in the corner