16

For if you know yourself, or God, or the World, you must of necessity enjoy it. It! If the short prayer pierces heaven, the short word calls it. To be called, to call out, we cull the words until they line up like cards in a catalogue. Archives dissolve: their dust tactile, like skin. It smells of mold and rot. Outside, a battalion of ants tried to push a dead centipede into their nest. The gap between stair and house too narrow, they bore its body for days, up and down a stair. If ants were cartoonists, would they execute them for nasty? It is pronoun for a corpse. It was the cop on the street, body blurred (the second time) so we could not see him shot. An archive of repetition: they run to their car over and again. Always there is the sneaker under the right front door. What happened to it?

--8 January 2015