Reason And Leisure

 
    
and then, the thing itself:
fathoms ice sungloved 
by the separate nectars that 
drip and dry for the actual,
this actual, and
contact with the actual,
folding onto its own 
pale outline.

and the flight attendant says:
Ginger ale,

and the old woman says:
Oh, I’m so sorry,

and the old woman says:
It’s what happens with a good book;
you can't hear anything else.

this summer the history of 
feelings roars through 
my neighborhood each step,
and the drug store is sorry, we’re all
so sorry, answering the telephone,
keeping as an always
gift those depths
which stay obscure
to one another, so sadly, 
but if we can’t grieve it… oh well.

and mount rainier says: 
As it stands, having now presumed
the scenario to be general,
the glacial and the actual have 
acquainted, so hey,
spare me your 
parallax. those 
eyelids, so 
swollen by signs 
that hold me 
always already hostage 
in the segmentary
plane of your singular 
fiction, where i become 
the object of a loss,
and there, at the interval, 
invert the absolute 
majesty of surface,
hardened by glowing 
freeze and firs. 

surface brings no debt to any 
set of lips or orchestra, 
and is the echoing 
property of no argument
lost, no chalk,
no face in the moon, no
parents’ stories from 
before our time, half
of my shirts, and no 
aquarium either, no church 
parking lot, definitely no 
cassiopeia or impeccable
silhouette, each 
instant being the actual
sweetness of itself. 

and the actual, upsettingly, stays silent.