Intersections

Along the way

there are other

paths, joining, re-

joining, leading

away from. Unknown

until you try them

out. What are you

missing? What

are you missing

out? What are

you missing out

on? Along the way

there are / other

paths. Leading

into. Leading onto.

Untried until you

find the joins, un-

known because of

missed conjunctions.

Ecology

One measure is the

earth & how

we stand on it,

watching things grow

& measuring our

growth against them.

The other is the sky

& how we hang

from it, taking

its temperature as if

it were a patient, &

we patient with it.

Laying Plans

How are we

supposed to know

that it’s a “spare the

air” day? Certainly

it has a sort of

maverick quality

to it, but that doesn’t

necessarily mean

we’re living in tough

times; & crash dummies

in minicars always

fare comparatively

poorly in collisions

with the economic

consequences of the

high Italian budget

deficit. The symbolic

use of flowers dates

back to antiquity. Why

must we sacrifice &

shop in a one-room

shack when a whole

mall awaits us?

The Emperor’s Butterfly

(with Martin Edmond)

All the lights went out. The sun disgorged a dust of insects. Microbes crawled from the disintegrated carapaces.

He sensed them marching in serried ranks towards the lesions in his skin. His hands could not find the switch. For a nanosecond a shell of fear encased him. His trembling broke it. Then he acted.

Reaction first. Interrogated the night but it had nothing to say, was full of aliases, none of them his. He felt like Schrödinger’s cat – but where was Schrödinger?

The air was full of dis-ease. Space was the uncertainty principle. Time was not his friend.

This was not an experiment, it was slaughter. The rustling battalions had already breached his integument, were immune to his response. His massing white cells were being massacred. Defense is knowing when to run.

Afterwards, he never knew exactly how he got away. Surmised that just as there were lines of force there must be lines of weakness, and the pale pupa that was his soul had somehow broken one and used the other to lift off.

His new wings were like nothing else in the world.