Contents May Settle

Unfold a step-stool. Steady yourself. Reach above the speaker. Then

 

take your cobwebbed alter ego down.

Caress its ghostwhite bumps and lumps,

smooth as unglazed porcelain.

 

Run fingers across the biting edge

of two half-moons. Your thumb around

the rim of empty orbits.

 

Stare into those sockets. Ask your plastic Yorick where he came from.

 

‘Bare of all attachment, I have

sated memory’s hunger,

carried my arcane names within.

 

We objects find ourselves

wherever we’re appreciated,

never in an institution.’

 

His three planes of facial weakness demand you look within. Explore

 

the sinusoidal labyrinth.

Trace its meandering sutures,

find every ditch and fissure.

 

So, remove the beret, black and worn

echado de lado like that Che

you once thought - in jest - to be.

 

Unhook the catch. Lift the vault. See a butterfly at rest inside.

 

 

ix. 2024

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