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 deathly granny faces.

Sure, somewhere out there, there are windows with lights on in them.
Well, there were. They’re off now.
That was one year ago. One year ago today. Why did I think that was tonight?
A year is supposed to be something, I think.

It’s supposed to be a fossil, a nice fat eggplant peeping from the garden.
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. Something a little vicious;
The earth 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.
The dancers are floating in freezing space.
Mostly everything is contained in the movement
of one loose vine in the wind.

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, it is like mummy hair.
And if I find wisdom in a nectarine so be it.
I still have animal teeth.