Ours Is the Age of Pre-Post-Hope

Tonight’s the night to spin a world
that does not reproduce the now,

like the inventor of the Vegetebrella,
who thought the beauty of the simulacrum

of a butter lettuce head
and levered silver pole could live as one.

This Kindle is jealous
of that dulcimer, and even these specks

of tension make me feel
rag-edged as a contorted filbert.

Consider, if you will, the following:
Cities should try to sell umbrellas

only in slim numbers,
forcing strangers in twos

to rub arm hairs together.
Padmasambhava is said to have said

the basis for realizing enlightenment
is the human body. Understand.

These pairs of persons
wouldn’t even have to talk,

looking over each other’s shoulders
at the town’s shins—

broad umbel shadowing
the earth between them,

carving raw closeness
with the lights of their ribs.