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Some things are little on the outside, and rough and common. Her voice recognition software translated “excellent” to “eczema,” while Siri said “cat of the rightists” for “cat arthritis.” Await the typo, for that is where tooth lies. Can the little paragraph hold so much as you, my borrowed God? I wonder about Tom Traherne, with his Dear God emails, his aspirational prose. Did he agree with Williams that prose is emotion, poetry imagination? I don't mean to appropriate his form; I got there by another route. But how good is the paragraph for devotion to detail, which is where some gods might be, were they not so grand and forgetful. To exist outside of form must be tiring, all those verbs to conjugate, nouns to learn by rote. The constant scratching of beard, each hair visible and felt. Detail in its despite, succor and sucker both. I've borrowed your father, Tom, not so much as audience but as my common muse. The dust of the streets and all.

--19 January 2015