mmmdclxvii

the checkbook, a 21st century relic,
slides itself under the front door,
stands up, and walks down the
driveway to the sidewalk, where
it escapes behind the hedgerow

never to be seen again by the people who
occupied the fine establishment that had
just been exited by an inanimate object,
despite the warrant they put out for its
apprehension, and a reward that could’ve
moved one into an altogether separate class
(if one were in the ever-expanding colloid known
as “lower” – and it is true that “middle” had been
inching ever toward this strata as both the bottom
and the middle had experienced what had become
known as a “squared” or sometimes “cubed” gravity
field at such levels as compared with, say, gravity
most anyone alive might remember just months
back; and yet somehow the gap between what
the original first and second layers that were
essentially collapsing into one another and
the meringue, the veritable icing, that
level known as “upper” was expanding
in what might as well have been explained
in “layman’s terms” as “by the galaxy,” or
“by a vacuum that is steadily expanding
in a way one might call galactical exponentia.”
and with the planet become one gigantic lower-
middle class sinkhole and the upper crust rising
like a thin-lipped, crisp Olympus, words had, as it
turned out, become less and less effective. which is
to say, words had become less necessary. language
had begun to not exactly wither, but a more effective
description would be to say that language, words them
selves, had begun to sort of bottom out. there were many
sounds that were emitted in expression, from the rumbling
moans rising from the planet’s sinkholes, to the airy, thin-
lipped and high-pitched, not-so-sonorous yodels that were
whimpered from Olympus. expressions were viable at this
time, and were used, although it was often difficult to ascer
tain to what effect. but soon words, or what firstly were
attempts at emitting complete sentences, as had been
done with such regularity in the old days, began in
seeming earnest, the gods and goddesses, as well
as the sunken souls below, would, before a literal
and recognizable word or twobe awkwardly mouthed,
these attempts would soon simply disintegrate into a 

low-pitched sound that seemed as if it were coming 

from the bottom of the perpetrator’s bowels,
or from some faraway and yet
now nonexistent farm animal
like a crieoowwwww. or a
cliarawawawwwwwwawww.
or a dirigidirigiduhooozzzah.
an aooooooozzzzaaaahh.
an ooooooozzzzowww.
until it was just the
silence that slowwwed
and that sleeeeelewwwed
the mahhhs. the mazzzes.
the mohouzzzeethewwws.