Unfinished magazines
break the dust on my nightstand,
two ball point pens,
plus the one in my hand.
A stack of books I haven’t been reading,
Sartre, Cohen, Carlo Rovelli,
a handful of journals and magazines . . .
These are things you collect
when your degree is in abstraction,
books and dust and magazines,
the same clock radio you’ve had for
30 years or more.
Why does it keep tracking time, so faithfully,
when the Rovelli says time does not exist
and the Sartre says it’s all either being or nothingness
and the Coehn makes a mockery of it all?
This is when the heavy lids go down for the night–
here in the flannel sheets we got at Macy’s, during one of the hospital trips, I think–
around Christmas? Maybe? Who knows?
soft and warm with foxes and skiiers and deer,
all on a field of snow like dust fallen
around the clock and the books and the magazines,
two ball point pens,
plus the one in my hand.