by Jackson Arn
This could all be circular.
Not self-swallowing like the staircase
from the poster, I mean circular
as in smooth rows of endless smooth stacks
perpendicular to pain, touching on a plane
but only one, so air bubbles
and grains of sand left in the loaf
remember their orders and lend
a noble cause their roughness—
who brings a harp to an island?
I can tell you don’t believe me and
are too polite to wince. Sometimes I wish
I didn’t need your vote. Then I
could drift with purpose instead of at odd hours
between naps and chopping onions. As it is,
we’ll drift together until our vectors
pull us apart or, better, pull the shoreline here
so we can drift in place, chattering
about the blue pond by the blue window,
the pilgrimage between your thumb and me.