THE SCALE OF LARGESSE
A last chance dangles from your ceiling like mistletoe,
tests doubt in a grateful mirror. Burdened by sentiment or will,
all forms live internally. When fish are set loose from a net
a world flips over, lands in the midst of canals dug between centuries,
and takes up partnership in the most dangerous field.
Death stops by daily to greet those on the sea. Delve and drown,
with who knows how many more uncounted. Twelve,
twenty-four, eighty-two may be vast underestimates
for so many countries keep imprecise records. In them
we locate blueprints for drainage, irrigation, the breeding of plants.
Our own dropped breakables contribute to a method
rumored to erase utility, handed down in the form of crochet-trimmed
towels.
I dry each filet by wrapping it in paper so no fluid remains
to splatter from the pan. In other media, questions are asked
constantly
that attempt to evoke unspeakable names
but no one seems to want to know where power comes from until
it goes off.
And only occasionally does water beg the question of source
in shorthand meaning cruel, svelte, ready for skinning. Can you teach
me?
Or is it simply inherent or absent? Right or left handed, matter of
course.
Hovels of headache and torn coat linings
form a genteel geometry adrift in its own mazelike reflection
and influence flails in the manner of final words
spoken from the floor long before you were found there.
I would prefer to avoid crescendo in these cacophonous times
inundated with mess. Try to subdue rash glances so stamps will go up
and crime reports can be filed. Dig into density to place well-wishes
and pull out a bone that later we’ll sketch.
Only a half-truth can effectively soothe the shore. I’ll strive
to avoid
appearing aloof and promise to put as much charisma into maybe and
yes
as I can muster. I now see where everything I will ever need is kept.
When the miracle happened, nobody reacted in the same way.
Variations in behavior could have been catalogued by someone
industrious
but all with that trait were manifesting it elsewhere. Collecting, maybe,
or playing scales toward the improvement of other music.
I miss you, and don’t mean to sound as if I don’t
but all these occupations can distract even those who are at leisure
to choose what will happen next. Payments are made to
a general plan for how things go awry. Follow the car ahead
and end up in the wrong town or even tied to a phone pole waiting
for release, toes tagged with a name and time but no reason. We
arranged
and undid our long-sought vacation, knowing how sleep eludes us
in the rooms of short-term rentals. It is possible to get away with
so slight a level of sharing. Much easier to march in pairs in song,
remember how people sound when recorded. One source of harmony,
regrets. And elusive, responsibilities stuck to the refrigerator door.
Save, for you cannot know when you’ll change track and need scraps.
Delicate scrolls on the radiator sing a short cycle called will this
do?
as the minimum contact forms in our rose bed, strides eastward after
slicing open the top of a convertible. I would offer assistance
but the familiar has stricken me still with scenery so clinical
that it plainly conveys how precarious everything beyond must be.