Neue

RIGHT WHEN I'M FEELING GOOD ABOUT THE MODERN MOMENT

And the fractured self and the gross vagaries of

public life, something arresting happens, pops my good

humor square in its beaming, seraphic face,

and I'm forced to consider my neighbor's lawnmower

chewing through his splotchy lawn like

institutional-grade cheese.  No need to meditate

on the engine's whine, its inescapable metaphoric allusiveness:

mob of enraged bees spoiling for a fight;

sewing machine you found in an alley

in a town whose name you can't recall,

just that you lugged it home, its cord

dragging behind you like a frayed tendon,

where in secret you plugged it in

and the thing sang, burning, before

it locked up inside itself, really dead, truly junk.

No need to hover over all this,

no need to extract from it

the flashy ore of unexamined significance,

but I just did, there is no taking back

this sort of thing, no recall to issue

when what you find is not what you want.

When what you wanted was five minutes alone with

the shadow of an ornamental cherry tree,

or sex first thing in the morning,

just beyond the ragged boundaries of sleep,

or a bowl of something good for you,

though your surprise borders on the seismic,

and, really, what you are eating

is your death, your awareness, at last, that it is aware of you.