Words

Daniel Pettee

Watered-down spirits in half-filled glasses;

bleached garments sifted by the sun

to virtual visual nothingness; rust-rimmed implements

pendant from workshop hooks; timeless incense

and unstoppered perfumery; several of ten

ringed pins still standing, fast-frozen frames, near misses.

Ant-crawling, mice-typed images expressed

on foolscap thin as a lizard’s gelid skin,

as cool as stainless silver sheen; the touch of

a beached, bleached fish. Well…there isn’t much of

sure significance, of emotion’s essence, when

the last long letter of love’s addressed.

Diced and measured crossword puzzles of dreaming,

scheming souls at ease, blanked cubes like

geometric cubbyholes for visions closed in glassine tissue

so tough fresh razor blades can’t cut it. A trial: at issue?

Significance of pasts and futures, memory’s slight trick

of gilding lilies via passages of double timing.

Blinking and blinkered images on cuneiformal CRTs

in shaded living rooms only remotely occupied;

a spectral glow commemorates the apathy of

ignorance, the very dearth or death of love

aligned against the shiny, superficial blade

of double visions…or extemporaneous disease.