24 fps

INSTEAD

In movies when much is made of the dead

wife or the dying boy with hair like

Prince Valiant or the father still

imperious in his grave, I’m waiting

for the gun to go off or the mothership

to disgorge its light show

or the chase to begin shredding replicated

Ferraris. I’m looking up

through the beam all this bustle

bustles through, trying to see where light

is impinged upon by dark

because I’m bored, because alone

I’ve come to guess two acts too soon

who is killing off left-handed

postal workers in Seattle. Outside

there’s rain but it’s not endless

and through it I’ll walk home

without erupting in song,

wishing for an umbrella

parabolic to the rain,

I’ll tell myself some better story than this.