An Envelope

What about days when you feel nothing.

Waiting in the car, relative arbitration,

pigeon-pewter or urinal-cake sky, whatever.

A man shouting, a parade of missiles...

You chew the food and harvest thoughts

from a seafloor. Control subject,

a raincoat blurred in close-circuit resolution,

you pinch the nerveless gummy flesh

of  your elbows and fail to love well.

You try to carry a flag, at least,

in the distance. This is not sickness.

This is not anything. Hand gripping

the big knife cutting onions. You could

cut fifty onions this way. You could sleep

until Easter. Maybe the fog will have lifted

by then and time will not seem to pass

like small bones being broken in order.

What’s that sound? Bald human instinct,

pounding on the windows like a fly.

Who am I? All blown open, paper fold,

you cannot stop the living obligations,

debts abstracting in neutral waves.

Please come back. Patient hearts

are lining up along the shore.