If it’s more beautiful than mine,
it’s yours.
Bioluminescence
Walking through the sensor gate at the public library
after a heavy reading, you fear the alarm
will go off from what is held in your mind.
You reassure yourself with the thought that no matter
how fuzzy it gets in the wire-tangled AV room,
you are still lunch, with possible leftovers,
for that wolf and her cubs. You have to imagine
the wolf and her cubs, obviously, but it helps.
When it comes down to it, it’s completely dark
just a few millimetres beneath the skin, no matter
how real the flickers on your nerve endings feel,
what with this strong coffee, this pulsing sky. You remind
yourself deep-sea life forms have evolved bioluminescence
for practical, not spiritual, reasons. Lunch, leftovers, etc.
Wooden chairs are real and tangible,
which is why philosophers and poets are always
referring to them, holding onto them, when hovering
around their rooms. Sometimes you catch yourself
singing without knowing you are singing
and sometimes you don’t even catch yourself.
Worn Book
The spine’s threads and glue coming apart
from frequent shelving, being shoved into backpacks,
tossed across rooms; the cover tarnished,
water/coffee/wine damage,
dog ears, rippled pages, stains from a petal
pressed between pages 26 and 27,
tiny crushed insects like misplaced punctuation,
damage from the book louse’s
feeding on the mould in the paper,
the mould too, of course, scribbled notes,
shards of highlighter, the slow fading
from light itself. Our fingerprints,
the oil of our hands, the oil and sweat
of our shaking, paper-cut hands.
Dear Liza
You need a flashlight to find the flashlight.
A cup of coffee to muster the energy
to get to the coffee maker. Call
the phone-repair man with your smashed
phone. Decipher the patterns in the ceiling.
The pill that takes away your fear of heights
is at the top of the ladder. I gave up everything for you,
he says. Everything that I wanted you to keep,
she says. Signing up for the fire-juggling course
requires that you have already taken
the fire-juggling course. Your face hovering
above the puzzle is an unfinished puzzle. Scattered
sky-blue pieces. A frown is a frozen ripple.
A shudder is you trying to be in two places at once.
But there’s a hole in the bucket, dear Liza, dear Liza.
Try and try, give up and try again. And give up.
I cannot say sorry until you say sorry first,
they both think. The oars to your boat are floating away.
Itch in the phantom limb. Cut flowers in the vase
with all their love-me / love-me-not petals.
You first, they both think. Please. You search
your pockets outside your locked car. Where
are they? Oh, right. In the ignition.
There they are.
Automatic Teller
The fast-cash ATM wonders why
the woman looks so sad
when it prints out
pale numbers
on a small piece of paper
after she clearly pressed yes
when offered a receipt
wonders if this is some
personal narrative
it is not privy to
through its built-in camera
the ATM’s limited view
is the lower half
of a streetlight pole
a newspaper box
updated daily
a laundromat across
the road with lopsided
hanging fluorescent lights
I’d print something better
if I could
it thinks
fortune-cookie ribbons
or
the inverse
of every news headline
I’d generate some music
if I had more
than one tone
crush that little paper
