lxxv.

the dry air will choke out
the most reasonable

of delusions, the lights
flicker upon a thousand histories

slouched against the vinyl, legs
stretched out,

constrained by art, slumped
over the tufted plastic,

molded particle-board,

--time will make virtue of
any misstep that lasts, any
precept that travels as far
as the fingers--

--someone will say, I
used to think like that,

the wings shake, maybe the sky
alleviates itself of such a
limited definition,

sends you stumbling, into halls
made by human hands, sure, as a
finger in your eye, reminding you,

that art is so much, slam yourself
against the window,

such the power of that art, that the world itself
is made of windows, and I would
bleed on them, broken--but that is such a
sliver of nothing.

---

it could be a kind of birth, but the moment
drags, against the air--

until it is all but dead, and
releases, then