the meaning crumbles and you don’t know | what you thought at that time | why you thought it | you don’t recall it | (why did you think it?)

lie close to her | she’s resting maybe | half asleep or | reading a magazine | you’re conscious | of the blood going into and out of her heart | it seems unreal | that she, and you, depend on | such a vagrant thing as a | heart

not only the monuments | ‘Capital’ or ‘value’ | ‘purpose’ or ‘truth’ | but tiny and fragile things | form | the fortress of the butterflies

you notice – for how long? – how the moment magnetises everything to it [the boat, the sunlight spearing the water, the dogs barking, the time | in the watch on your wrist] how | everything’s intensely attracted to that one order | bonded |

turn away, though, and it’s all | repelled | a beautiful shape of emptiness | occurs inside you, the thing | you built from your life, and instead | everything is rushing into place, unable to escape | the dazzling and | incoherent | magnet of a new | moment

right now, you’re bringing to significance | what you have | the whole delicate | fortress of your mind, your ideas, sketches, plans for the future | your [BUTTERFLIES SWARMING] desire, your mountains of letters, your succinct | critique

into and out of | focus | they go, all those | things you want and care about | and half see and | don’t want and | don’t care about

precise and elegant as words in a fine font | but imprinted in the vague | medium of the luscious | pulsating | walls | of your vague and | scatterbrained | heart | everything is exactly where it should be, but | it won’t | stay here

 

from the series hypergrammar (open-ended, 2012–present)
(this poem, July 2012)