all i need is a new way
to look at the door,
anticipating nothing;
a way to live without
money, any money
at all, for three
whole months; a
meeting that isn’t
an obvious step
backwards; a
giant hill or
concrete set
of stairs upon
which to walk
backwards up;
a fresh way to
think about the
rubber chicken
with the egg
(sunny-side up)
wrapped around its
rubber throat, its
rubber legs twisted
through the water
pipes (one hot,
one cold) on top
of the closet that
has what still
seems (to you)
like a new and
shimmery jagged-
patterned curtain
that keeps just
anyone (only me)
from looking inside
it, the closet, that is,
with its north wall
facing me now in
seeming christmas
disappointment,
still with a few days
nevertheless of the
twelve days of
christmas in
a not-so-
hopeful year
in which every
one seems already
to be hoping for
new year’s next,
exhausted already
by all of the
prospects dancing
all around us (me
and the disappoint
ments, the artifacts,
also dancing); the
sunglasses hanging
from the triangular
purse, that hangs,
in turn, once again,
from the wall next
to the boring door;
another wall facing
the cooler climes
of the north, which,
this year and the
last several have
been impossible
to disappear into,
due to the walls
facing south which
keep us in place,
and like all of the
walls, face inward,
face the desk,
the bed and
the sink, each,
like the chest
of drawers which
stands in the middle,
a miniature version
of it all, broken
or decaying in
various degrees;
oh, city of slow-
pokes, reframed
and melting cal
endar, each month
of which drips to
the floor, and,
inevitably, onto
the wax mantle
of what remains
of earth, outside,
once a sculpted
promise that fell
from a fledgling
sky upon our flesh.
