Late Night Rumors

The room is made of paper.
There’s nothing in the air but vinegar and
fall’s apples shrinking in the fridge
to granny faces.

There are windows with lights on in them.
Well, there were.
But they’re off now.
That was one year ago. One year ago today that they were on.
A year is supposed to be something, I think.

It’s supposed to be a fossil, a nice fat eggplant you can eat.
It’s supposed to be a buzzard
with a scrap of flesh hanging from his lips;
carry the whole world like a tuft of cotton.
She rumbles so she does have to deal with quietness.

Claims to have her heart in
mind…
Claims to not be enamored
with wealth…
Claims to find real meaning
in the wind…
Claims that the circle
and the line are one thing…that
languages are equivilant…
that there are people
worth loving…
that the night is not
more persistent than day…

No one knows who were are.
Our faces are mixed up.
One picture hook hanging in the plaster.
The fish are frozen in their oceans.

I make a pact with an old man in a nightshirt, carrying a hammer.
I cannot live anymore, I tell him.
It is too delicate to feel.
It is too old, like mummy hair.
And if I find wisdom in a nectarine so be it.
I still have animal teeth.