again pepper's ghost
advanced technology
folded away in the memory
of nature with her toys
at work listening to Ulysses
A LibriVox Recording
I'm falling back into Joyceland
my strange addiction
I'm so superstitious
everything a breadcrumb
and then a packet in today's
post from a lawyer
who shares your first name
which in Iran is maybe
very common but to me
it's only yours
as I scan the packet I think
or think I ought to think
that no matter how in agreement
two people are and no matter
how intent they are to try
it's dumb to think of love as possess-able
it just won't be possessed
but the way he jumps like a cat
to keep the balloon off the ground
the way he climbs his roof to sweep
the redwood needles from the corrugated
plastic skylight the way he touches my back
as I wash my face in the meantime
the cubicle the mail room
the printer room the inbox
it’s a lot of alone
I think this life the runaway train
can only be slowed by obsession
full immersion full absorption with detail
like the scientists on the radio
today one says humans when egged into
existential dread or fear of mortality
are more comforted by a story of
our uniqueness as individuals than
a story of solidarity with all animals
but if we’re told animals are special too
we feel better or something like that
or we are driven to compassion perhaps
I want to know the set up for these experiments
what they use to prompt the dread
then how they take it away
rare and mythic vs senseless thrum
insufferable Anais Nin says
she loves her nightmares
that she doesn’t understand why Henry
is trying to be a philosopher that philosophers
are merely preparing for death
classicists are dying as they try to dominate life
with philosophy while romantics are living it
but still, how to be big enough
when what scares me is so simple
inertia and irreverence
not caring when I should
slipping backstage to just
project my hologram off of a mirror
and then eventually just
leaving a statue in my place
to do the reflecting
