sitting up late at night to see the mouse come in and out
the holes in the walls

there
now its seen as what’s been done and doesn’t need doing anymore
the doing of it’s empty
say’s someone
go back to your shellself.

the keys lay on the table next to things I found on walks
gleam in scuff on the table thing of least use
are you still what you are when I’ve failed to recognize it?
screw in threads in metal bent around the angle, bored
rust in the ruts brownred

you know what rust looks like
you know what this whole thing looks like

later she said she'd been sick

I'd looked and looked around the area
what was it though? an abandoned high school? asylum?
later I stood at the edge of a river
fast moving , undenied , with that fake surface homogeny
of things with overwhelming strength .
i spanned it going from log to log until i reached the oblisk trunk
riding down towards the water that'd turn it white
and wash it up on white sand in maine

when i tried the return trip across
looking for my familiar stepping logs
i found they'd floated indifferently away
and i'd been left .
I walked to the edge of the trunk, stumbled, and fell into the water