I.
It’s like this. There is a structure that might be on fire. For years I’ve been filling a small room inside a small house with statues made of paper. And the paper is lined with gauzy script. I am wanting this to be mine. For an era, I’ve lined the walls and inked the details, filling collection baskets with more than I have. But you knew this. You knew everything was made of paper. What can I say about knowing.
II.
There is something beautiful about this horizon. Dust storms and fishbowl-sky and tumbleweeds stacking next to a fence. But in the end it wasn’t mine.
III.
Look. It’s called still wanting. It’s called remembering something shiny and new, but thinking: Am I rust? It’s called–three weeks before the end–a student in my office lifting her two hands. On one side is poetry and the other: repair. Something here is helping.
IV.
Let me break it down. It’s broken down. At the same time my students write these perfect lines. At the same time I am something spent. Tired of counting quarters for a McChicken after class. At the same time I cry, I clap.
V.
The place I’m leaving: staked and semiarid. The spring comes late and full of wind. Grass fires break out around the boundaries of town and it’s as if I’m on a treadmill walking toward the industrial whir of a turbojet. Getting nowhere; leaking everywhere. Hair in my mouth, face, eyes. You see, I am tangled and my very self starts lifting off the plain.
