Whelm

by Ellen Boyette 
 
What then, to be over, beyond
recognition?
 
You run your tongue over only, 
like an oil cloth for gunmetal,
 
remarks on construction, a faint
pain in sleep. 
 
Sun declines. Every day happens. 
Interfacing with somebody’s baby,
 
somebody showers
soft vowels over new air 
 
like powder. Sun under, nonplussed
coughs up a lung, calls it a cloud.
 
In the matted pelt of wolf down,
maroon with earth and carcass,
 
you move as though
you could be so suited. Prowl 
 
the streets followed by inaudible 
tribal drum. No one looking. No one 
 
commanding ‘hunt-gather’, extract 
a strand of DNA in the wild where 
 
no one calls it ‘DNA’ and no one 
calls it ‘the wild’. Call it thinnest vine, 
 
call it river runner. Call it spine shelter, 
hide, call it cover. There are so few 
 
ways left, aren’t there? In the morning
you’re back to buying expensive nothings
 
from what’s called The Container Store.
Nuancing ‘waking’ and ‘getting up’
 
when the screen reads Cloud Cover,
and the goose quilt tag reads
 
DOWN, COMFORT. As in,
command to a dog, not wrong 
 
when you sigh between them, 
impressed by only the bed that best 
 
resembles an orthodontic mold. 
You’re told that butterflies used to captivate
 
adolescent shut-ins like a mirror
but don’t believe it. A thin
 
window of plasma sells you  
cutting edge plant based diets
 
and yet further seasons continue 
to bloom and wilt in various windows, 
 
no? Time under and over the city
gushes as though through ancient
 
aqueducts or reverse aquarium ventilation. 
All the sleek girls in trenches 
 
with see-through parasols opening
are covered. It’s not that 
 
you’ve never been under 
for surgery, it’s that it wouldn’t make 
 
a difference. Billboard reading:
How much longer? tapering 
 
with distance. The calendar is but 
a chrysalis in which to bury unsurprise. 
 
Remind me of your friend 
who slept in a coffin. What was their name?