A smooth copper bowl, tarnished with candy
Two sheets listing a compass to towers
Gray square tile protecting from heat
Numbers of money printed through history
     never opened
32-box of microwave popcorn I never eat
Lids swirled with colors of ice cream
A Russian spoon
Contracts stuffed with dumb words
A booklet of machines
Shipping labels to recycle computers
Stacks of tax envelopes
The phenomenology book of Lyotard
Red jam canned from cherries on the tree
Wild raw honey, golden
Brown chocolate beside nutmeg
A ceramic mug with rope and green ships
Small white plate under a butane refill
Long instructions for drugs
    when my eardrums ripped
Red silk from the packing of headphones
Scotch tape, vinyl gloves and three pens
Shipping label barcodes from many things
Manuals to phones and switches
Small colored boxes, wire cutters
Thin pointers and a size adapter
Three snake-tangled cables
And a black leather bag for music
Computer cords, a power charger
And an old new phone
Piles of papers from observatories
Cards from an old lawyer, cards
     from people in sports
A lighter that no longer works
Splitters, a fume respirator
A bottle of scented water
Receipts for pie and coffee
Pamphlets telling me they're there to help
Dark glasses when its too bright
Deionized water with proprietary polymers
     and a cloth
A basket for steamed vegetables
Two pairs of goggles and a hard memory
     machine that might be broken
another old phone, keys
the white electric kettle
Lost instructions for a vocal mic
with three anti-static bags under
a narrow black transformer
two checking ledgers stored
in a large promotional bag
A sheet of passwords and addresses
an old green silverware tray
     with a single spoon
a small bag of fertilizer and
screws, screws, screws and bolts,
the lid to a container somewhere else
a large, round ash tray coated
     in thick sticky tar
and a dirty black phone out of power
beside a crunchy stuck rag
coffee-stained paper with words
     unable to be read
a large memorial coin, heavy
in the hand next to the teapot
thirteen plastic cups stacked erect
behind a potted blue vase used for pens
the well-used tack cloth covering
     green lights and a ring
     of unknown keys
an unused three-inch paint brush
instructions for an broken razor
with colorful stickers of the Planetary
Society tucked in an old, empty wallet

Forgive me for becoming
unfamiliar again. The creek
hidden below entrenched
with rippling sounds
moving drew me down
the mudded trail
slip sloped and nettled
with stumps wrapped green
to the place I must be
followed to be found

by the water that flows
up to knees, pants hiked
bare feet cupped balanced
on slippery bed stones
slowly smoothed in time
walking against currents
or with; a whim uncoupled
from all that is wished.

You were with me, the whole
time I was imagined gone,
oblivious to importance
when even leaves fluttering on
their fixed sticks sound
loud as the rippling creek

True darkness
   you know
on clear nights

when clouds
   reflecting
their illuminated oversight
are fallen

   in that sight
that only goes out

Clouds home town
street lights
orange electric
arced all above

excepting the night
   gone out
   in clarity

the singular cold
thinning of air
that spreads
between faces

as density moves
   from the center

released
in an accident
   of force
that is left
   unclaimed

I never thought
working to improve
alignment would reveal
teeth set in jaws
on a misaligned skull,
throat twisted sideways
consciously moved to
straight between the ears
with each swallow
requiring I look up –
arms stretched out
until shoulders pop,
fingers fanned widely,
and Adam's apple
bobbing to lay the head
gently left then right
then centered again
across the forehead
allowing it all
to drop back down
in a new learned state

I remember the contours of your thought
more than any one thing. Quiet smiles,
drawn out and peppered with tiny points
that irritate and vex, a succulent seasoning
always landed in the best place by surprise.

And the deeper voice, longing to escape
its uniformity, buried in a thousand tasks.

I am left wondering, is confusion cured
by embracing that reasonable state,
where destinations, made to order, fit
snugly as I remember you sitting there? Or
is it worse knowing all that must be done
from now, on past tomorrow, and further,
to replace confusion with a narrow madness
aligned automatically clear out to the end?

Whatever the cause, now you are free
to live beyond an intention only the smallest
fraction left to yourself, ever desired
to begin with – free as you always are
when growth and uncertainty are one,
and the delayed fear of an unknown heart
is revealed, beating as it always appears
but stronger, confident in the new chance.

It is inevitable – time corrects
   everything imagined

The young, believing their freshness
withstands the test, ignorant darkness
emerges even from the smallest belief,
in contrary to hope, reinforce their own
statuesque solid, jaw set, intending toward
the future unburdened by the old,
yet bound soon to crumble as their own
new relic, erected in squares, bronzed
immobile, awaiting the newest young
to be pulled down in judgment with all
the small corrections admitted might be

It is comforting, your concern
being conveniently machined
   to fit this container
   as you plumb it
confident as an artificer
versed in human shapes,
poured into tired forms, as
if passion, even shaded,
remained for any of us.

But it is gone, used up. Years
of prospecting, deep shafts
drilled through the mantle,
striking dark gold pumped
up and out until you find,
surprisingly, the earth is flawed
   by its own emptiness

And so I confess, that the veins
beneath this mantle continue
their flow, slow and unabated,
unreachable by such tools
   requiring firmament
   to grasp a position –
and may, as a curvature accepts
the weight of objects to move them,
simply observe the circular motion
as a mathematic effect of such effort.

Sound coming from speakers
sounds like thunder deeper
because it is not real
and there are things mixed
in with children voices
and birds who are not fond
of storms
a radio out in the far Midwest
that no longer exists tuning in
frequencies, tuning in, a nostalgic
dance with electronic scrapings
in the picturesque wheat field