XXXIII.

XXXIII.

The white walls around me form a drain,
I sit, cubicle marrow, beside a window,
watching the sun click across the sky.
My gelatin bones twist in an ergonomic

chair, while my corneas remain a static size.
Everyone here is nagged by reluctance:
The same question dangles from their lips:
If I made all my decisions attentively,

how did I end up here, in this place I despise?
Yet this chair is base, a blackness falls at the
line of sight. And so they lie hands clasped,

eyes closed like pharaohs posing for a cast.
The coroner hears their grumbles, while
their confusions melt to wax.

XXXIV.

Yellow cracks in a burgundy vinyl purse,
vague thoughts on a globe, a woman’s
furrowed brow in the meat aisle: she battles
suited harpies from ripping away her rights.

Meanwhile, the manager adjusts his tie
in the television above the electric door.
A woman pushes a cart of ice cream
and mascara, toward check-out, where

I wonder if I am equal nourishment:
“And from these corporal nutriments perhaps,
our bodies may at last turn all to symbol.”

They load brown plastic bags into trunks,
turn keys, strap belts then roll themselves
away in their mirror shaped sarcophagi.


Diorama
for Carl Toth

Once I brought a shadow box to Mrs. Shoreman’s class:
an armada attached to an anchor, a simple photograph
of a family standing in the ocean.

My scene featured a son withholding a bird chested breath,
a daughter wavering on whether to hide or show two dimes,
a mother using her tongue to fawn some taste from the air,
a father grinning as the head of this absurd mallard.

In the corner, a cardboard embrasure hid among
cattails. Inside, it was wall to wall with bears.
I entitled my piece, Figure 80 Shows a Decoy Town
or, Dien Ben Fou. When my teacher asked me to explain,
I squirmed and said, “Sperm meets egg in water.”
Then I poured a glassful into the box. “We may
now see the undertow hit their brittle bronze legs.”