Divagar

                                “There’s a lot of waiting in the drama of experience.”  
                                                                            —Lyn Hejinian, Oxota 

No signal from the interface except for a frozen half-bitten fruit.  
Other than that, no logos. An hour is spent explaining

to the group what I’ve forgotten, to do with the mistranslation  
of a verb that means driftingbut can imply deviance.

The next hour goes by trying to remember, in the back of my mind,  
the name of the artist who makes paintings on inkjets.      

Why I’d think of him escapes me. Now my gaze circles the yoga bun  
of the tall woman in front of me. I didn’t pay $20 to contemplate

the back of her head. It’s killing me. The pillars and plaster  
saints with their tonsures floating amid electronic sound waves.

At such volume they could crumble. The virgin safe in a dimly lit  
niche as the tapping on my skull and the clamor of bones or killer

bees assaults the repurposed church. This is what I sought, while  
in another recess I keep hearing Violeta’s “Volver a los diecisiete”

and seventeen-year-olds marching against the nonsense of arming  
teachers. If I were an instrument. A bassoon. In the source language

we don’t say “spread the word.” Pasa la voz is our idiom, easily  
mistaken for a fleeting voice. From the back row all I see is fingers

gliding in sync with her vocalizations. How fitting a last name  
like halo. Lucky for us here time is measure and inexplicable

substance. That’s when I decide to stop fighting the city. Use it in my  
favor. Speak to strangers. Demolish the construct in the performance.