Apology

The cosmos paused before the storm awoke,
And the sneeze teased, and the water waited.
The doorway’s torpid tension never broke
Between out and in. The music faded.
My home’s moment of respiratory
Crisis, the pendulum’s pause at the rhyme
Of its smile, a gray hour’s purgatory
Implying the absolute. On ticked time,
Her fretful fingers swinging make-believe
Rings around the hole where I watched the lights
Fade on and off. Then the air coughed, the sieve
Strained, and fingers danced on keys in the night.

Your image clouds with my trembling exhale—
In the storm’s static I raise my shirt-tail.

Glass-Topped Table and an Underline

A prophetic mug cramps the diffused profusion
That slowly reaches self-realization on my
Coffee table, its parched cavity telling vestigial truths
Of future reuses.
Several bygone sepulchral celebrities
Drown in their undesired glory as they hang on these walls—
Preoccupied antitheses of those nonentities that swim
Through the profits of their prostituted beauty
As they slouch on wire racks in-between
Cheap chocolate and the real deal.
Mountainous academia seems self-suspended
Over my extended legs, as my toes huddle
For shod consolation between four sundry sentries
Guarding the ancient inexplicable eclipses made by
My stifling textbooks. Other objects of interest include
A gas heater reminding me of thermal pockets of paradise
In-between the dually depressing horrors of
My pulled-back covers and a teacher’s icy exhales—
And a quaint collection of poetry that slyly reminds me of
Happiness, and suddenly the sheets are slipping.