rubbing the filters back and forth
through a knob on the screen that’s coded
to brush glaze and bury echoes
on photographs my oiled finger pads never once touched
So much past arrives on my screen
coupled with soft pings in the pocket
strange temple bell
And in these images pass chords of faces
of which I know next to nothing
while all fall I ride the 63 line from Moynihan to Rhinecliff
alongside passengers slumped with buds in their ears
as the river rises to meet what rips past
the morning’s stiff posture
And so I continue to shepherd things into the land of done
punching send repeatedly with my dominant finger
Welcome nothing, refuse nothing
My one tab is opened to the Tao Te Ching
and the other to meals machine-diced and packed
in miniature plastic jars that will arrive
ringed with sodium polyacrylate before tomorrow’s noon
With no sign of the ligature that binds hours
I sleep to seal myself off from the future
and waking try to keep death within earshot
so days remain, in a manner of speaking, rough
with openings in every hair and between
And like this, my life passes, almost wet to the touch
