^{after Martha Collins}

because it is to create an acute

angle an angle shaped like a

wedge because it is to give

birth to what you already know

to be expendable after it

has cleaned after it has fed

you because you are enriched

by even its deterioration because

the join might seem slender

like a throat because the bud might

seem tender like a bud but in this

tenderness you do not share you

do not share anything because even

the join is also a jamb a harbinger

of scab a rust-red portal that shuts

down what it depletes that shuts

out the obsolete because you keep

what is inside from seeping out

because you keep what is outside from

slipping in because in the singular

and as a noun you are a form

of formal permission as in why

don’t you make like a tree and…

^{after Martha Collins}

because it is to create an acute

angle an angle shaped like a

wedge because it is to give

birth to what you already know

to be expendable after it

has cleaned after it has fed

you because you are enriched

by even its deterioration because

the join might seem slender

like a throat because the bud might

seem tender like a bud but in this

tenderness you do not share you

do not share anything because even

the join is also a jamb a harbinger

of scab a rust-red portal that shuts

down what it depletes that shuts

out the obsolete because you keep

what is inside from seeping out

because you keep what is outside from

slipping in because in the singular

and as a noun you are a form

of formal permission as in why

don’t you make like a tree and…

All I remember is the coppiced terrain I crossed to find a house to rest in. Who is the woman lurking in the woods? A fellow traveler. I’m not used to seeing others. She is lost and I am lost but the difference is she is a novice at being lost, whereas I have always been without country. Without planet. When we happen upon a cabin I ask the house for shelter on her behalf. I’m aware that we come off as oogles but want to prove we are different by washing dishes. To concretize my gratitude. 

In the morning, before the others awake, I set off for the holy site in a horse-drawn carriage. The carriage has a detachable sleeping chamber designed so that a princely man can carry me supine whenever the horse gets tired. 

At sunset my pilgrimage is complete. The Asian market is a glass palace overlooking an airport. From outside the Palace of Snacks the products shine like organs inside a hard, translucent skin. As I take the palace escalator heavenward my eyes are fixed on an airplane parked on the runway. 

It is waiting for me.