In the Topography

Minute inertia,

a bull raining golden showers of swans              finding open places
to fall into, circa 1900: “so much depends” on a steel mill for a soup can;
the bomb sprouts in flowers, the horses and people (the bodies always slip away);
an octopus reinvented through the many cracks of water is followed
by a melting bird in a palm;              an etherized metro      in a city
                  seen from         an airplane or mountain car
        collects the air                  and at night dances with twinkles
recorded in so many Log of Dead Birds:       a Symbology of Concrete
        lining magazine racks,


                                          the dirty job of distribution


                                          a tune
                                          the dishwasher sings to the dishes:
                                          not yet not yet, yet
                                          not yet not yet not yet,
                                          yet
                                          not yet not yet, yet,
                                          yet



                                                  all holidays



over plates, glasses: chip’s tempting (the tiny
squares of a windshield after an accident) so tempting
the cupboard’s full

a thumb presses over a garden hose
a thumb swollen stiff
along the marvelous slick eucalyptus tree bark

                                                  Going home can never happen alone again,
                                                  so many in the beginnings,


                                                                                             hello my name is
                                                                                             hello my name is


and any combination of the two, synaptic
along the neural pathway to feed,
talk to the cat before making claim: cat,
all optical on the table, paw prints on the paper.