The Alpha Privative

Days and months are nonsense,

nonsensical. Only the year surfaces

and a season, recalled

from bare arms, canvas shoes.

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Here are three words: church

velvet

                    flag

Name them, again,

fifteen minutes from now.

After drawing the cube. After reciting

the days of the week backwards, and, too,

the word

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                    river

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What flowed at the hill’s base, muddy,

its banks crumbling.

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Parts of this organ are going dark. Pulling away

from the skull, like a nut inside a shell – what we shook,

listening for the soft rattle.

You shake your head, say: I am losing

my mind.

All the dates are nothing now. And where

the poppy is planted – a map is needed.     Here.

          This mark

on this page.

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