~T.R. HUMMER~

EVERYTHING THAT IS THE CASE

---

He was tired, and there was work to do, a desk-load
    of files, a telephone. Deadlines. And yet his mind
Refused. He could think of cut dahlias and the cheap
    vase on the laminated table. Never profit margins.
Instead an old china plate, blue willow, and the single sausage
    with its precious patina of grease—while just beyond
The horizon of consciousness hovered a forgotten image
    not from a dream, but the hypnogogic crucifixion
Of last night’s insomnia: the earth as a blackening smudge pot
    tracing across the firmament its dark-matter
Spoor, viscous residues of everything dying, smog
    of extinguished virus, char of bromeliad and whale. . . .
But first the crazed plate. The files. A scattering
    of petals. And always the excellent sausage.

 

© by T.R. Hummer