I'm about 45 minutes late,
every time,
too late to catch you living;
cleverly, you perch-
a carboard cutout man,
and this image of you sleepily penning
word upon word upon

memory;
and isn't that the very essence of
the present?
because for a good few months
out of the year,
it will not be summer,
and the earth will use you as its axis,
rotate, rotate.
I'm always a sloppy mix
of old thoughts,
stale and bitter concepts from
my childhood in the city, in the country,
the city again.

sometimes I take the ring off of my middle finger
and flick it 'cross the table,
and I always wonder if it will
skid and fall through the slats
of the floor vent,
and if it did--
would I find it particularly
consequential?