Everything You’re Thinking Is a Proxy for Other Things Out in the Wild

A straggler of a hot day
Lagging the hem of summer
Dragging the opposite way

Sets the air-conditioning
Wall unit in your small space
Into a chimeric state

Of synchrony with your thoughts.
Whenever you have something
In mind, the unit applauds,

But raggedly, waves of cool
Purring together like fans
Who know where the music ends

But also some sputtering
Outliers of machine noise
Like arrhythmic innocents

Trying to anticipate
When the chamber piece is done.
Your thoughts fall in line with one

Then the other course of sounds.
The universe looks the same
Everywhere in the system

And yet the oscillators—
Your thoughts, cool air, odd off clanks—
Respond differently to

Identical conditions,
Most bizarrely on the beat,
A few bizarrely off it.