For a free surface, the ocean kept its borders
paused. For a glass rim drawing feathery networks
on the wall, they shudder when the water nods
for the disappearance of the forest for the trees were
spaced door-widths apart. Press your wrists hard
to the jamb for thirty seconds and describe the standing
furniture, stripped trunks pass on a flat-bed truck
the siren tests at ten and two, your arms
float up, we called it playing ghost when we were kids
“and that’s what dying is.” Subject to zero
parallel stress, facedown, aligned
along right angles count the pieces
in that room stay frozen under see-through
wrap. Affected areas are stained. The ocean almost
empty now. I can describe it just by counting
passing cars at night extended into beams like ships
wake me up. Lie still. Metal bars slide out into the dark
to hang coats on, doors close, the afternoon attenuated, turquoise
carpeting so it was possible to say the over-stuffed
green armchair and settee were islands and the two of them were
stranded while they watched TV. It’s true they couldn’t
speak to one another freely, the other
subject spiriting the one at hand. A way
trained parallel to the received condolences
the railing for a voice like rows of trees
shade passages of wooden doors. Behind them
men and women lie in bed all day not really
recollecting how they came to be here, rounds go on
then turnover at nine, night falls, bright colors
spring to mind in beds
arranged around the ornamental
pond, a bench, another
parking lot, a gate, and then the shallow evergreen grove
planted for appearances and fraying whatever sirens take
the exit after it. His left hand
looks much paler since and thickening
like fresh-poured styrofoam, a rigid white
he holds at the wrist while he
makes small talk, soft-focusing
the situation, comparable to furniture
dismantled just by squinting, just by tearing
up, the even edges shirred, the chairs
on melting legs, soft chiffarobe, I can
describe what love looks like, like
nothing’s happening, two people
in a room not even looking at each other
speak. The trees molt paper feathers, gleaming metal
ships responsible for steering conversation in between
the dead zones drift above our heads, the higher stories’
gridded views like ice cube trays from which
pale single-family homes are shaken out, quick
burning strokes for swimming pools
below a face opaque as any other, actually
clear space through which calls drop
swift interchangeable hands in see-through
gloves administer the new
measures. I’m doing fine. Don’t go. At five
I used to pick the light blue off a patch
of wall beside my pillow, habit, though
the first time must have been to see what
feeling safe was made of, sure color
would go through, yes you look like you’re doing
so I called this “opening gray” to the stopped-up
transfer points redundant tollbooths
everywhere cardboarded over or not yet defunct
slots spit tickets printed with apologies to
sign and the bar lifts. It was not her arm
that stroked me since I know
she was asleep, he said, it felt as if a concentration
of the vacant space itself had brushed
my cheek alive. Think of it. Wax
morning glories, implanted paraffin state-shifting
in the modified drywall twice a day keeps it always
warm, light sticking to the buckled crests
in old linoleum like shots of ocean
spliced into the ordinary waiting room, waded out to
what again today, weighed, waited for some
way out not reprieve, love lives
three blocks away from me, I seldom go
between the narrow channel cut before reply
and the reply, a land-locked compromise erected
concrete, upright, determined by minute
partitions on a scale not even visible before
the microscope, they told you to lie
down somewhere, indoors, late afternoon, a room
sun tilting into cut one slender
aisle offering proof air
clotted to dust “and therefore is what looks clear
frenzied, numerous,” sight revised, I can describe
inertia, I have been there, it looks
the same as here, the street
convincingly painted onto glass as if you could go.
