fold, then tear on the dotted line

and the man who dreams of symmetry, what becomes of him? symbolic violence, what of her? electric lights from the café spill onto the wrinkled water of the canal. pigeons coo like doves from the chestnut trees. laughing bacchus trips home, he kicks a piece of bread from the sidewalk to the street.

and old woman drags a basket up the road. she is wearing nylons to her shins and her skirts tucked up under her breasts, twin pendulums, dangling loosely, as though she had forgotten them. her hair is parted crookedly and near her scalp the orange gives way to sickly gray. she speaks to herself and looks up at me. voices ring from the tabac.


the face that is not yours
mocks gently
oh, were you not looking for me
no
a room full of flowers, goldenrods
a room made of goldenrods
the softest pollen couches
to sink in
a room full of screaming tea kettles, ready
full of pillows
full of paperwork
full of faces,
tilted up slightly
to find you in the window
seeing nothing properly
the camera obscura of the eye
faulty espionage, turns everything
the cheek, the crown,
the moon of longing that wanes
once ivory, now nothing
one day symmetry will tally our losses
not yet