Not even if is a wildfire in shut sufficient vary.
Not even the current is inside breath.
For years the solutions got here, the identical
reply, or not the identical in any respect,
noticed in a special tongue, then none in any respect.
The smooth filling of the longer term tense
that will not match right into a grid, one I might identify.
And proper within the midpoint of what I believed was mid-
life, a brand new character padded onto the web page.
Who traveled from the lengthy after.
Leaking the afterlife.
And all that yr, I couldn’t learn, figuring out language
could possibly be directional, drawing shut. Transferring away.
However the character was recurring, then the principle determine.
His mouth loaded, the bababa.
Between his diaphragm and laborious palate:
phonic vibration and smear.
Strained visage behind my thirty seventh yr.
And the way did we get right here—you and I, I imply.
My youngster whose modifiers I have a tendency and prune on the display.
You had been a no after which one
of ten thousand issues arising within the thoughts’s snow.
Keep, you bid me, keep.
And from that time on there was no query laid
and there I used to be, now dragged by
the countless itching
of the clock’s arms, round and round
the now, now, now.
Was there ever a chase?
It’s getting late.
I shiver, touching you
right here on the web page.
This poem seems within the June 2026 print version.
