Where Else Can Squatters Move?

The mind’s a terribly
Crowded place—never mind
All this solitary

Roundabout of skull-bulb
Whispering to itself
Inside itself, being

That singular being.
Who has only one voice,
One set of scenery

Fluttering its fingers
Within interactions
Rehearsing in the brain?

Aren’t you sensing us now
In all the rest of you?

Peramulet

Katie was pushing the stroller
With Jack, down the bumpy sidewalk.
Clicket. Clunk. Clicket. Clunk. Softly,

Katie, softly. It was sunny,
The day, the light on Katie’s face,
The light on tiny, newborn Jack,

And you wanted to say something
To protect everyone in it,
To seal some phrases together

That could shield, that could more than mean,
That could be what language isn’t,
What myths and tales dream it should be,

A spell that can enact itself,
A verse transcending poetry.

Once Arranged

The phrase startles you—or rather,

You startle yourself with the phrase.

You’ve been a reading a short story,

Getting increasingly dozy

While mountains rise against the sun,

What with the evening coming on,

But does doziness explain this?

One sentence read, An encounter

Between two such specimens should

Not be avoided, but you heard

It in your own voice, in your head,

As, An encounter between two

Such specimens, once arranged, should

Not be avoided. Once arranged,

The phrase you added, felt solid,

Of a piece with the whole sentence,

Which, in turn, felt like you wrote it.

Was this was this just due to sleepiness?

Are you going a little bit mad,

Hallucinating extra text?

This has been happening of late.

You drift off reading, and go on

Composing your own words to read

But as if part of the same text,

In your head, until you startle

Awake. Even now, it feels right,

Your dream version of the sentence,

Once arranged, and the thought slips through,

What if the first draft had said that,

Then the phrase, once arranged, been struck?

What if proximity to death

Lets you read through the palimpsest?