On the perfect surface, our houses will fail. This hole
that is the ceiling
where we’ll sit, eating what we have. This edge
where we’ll swing our feet.

The distance to the ground
where we’ll be feasting
or disappearing. Where the bank fails.

We sing. We sing
to the air across the rivers, where we file in rows,
past Kansas City and Des Moines.

The stars will start talking again.
We’ll have carts, and what we can carry.
We’ll have our apologies.

I can count the rivers of America
this way. I can count the rivers
that flow from south to north, and I can count everyone
in this room.

We say we already know, after dinner,
laughing at the roof.
We’ll call someone tomorrow. We go outside.

We draw across the stars
in straight lines.

We’ll carry all that we can carry. We’ll have sex
by the roadside.

I’ll tell you what I want you to say.
I want you to say there’s a mathematics to this.

I want you to say it
as you take off your clothes.

We’re at a great distance.
Little specks of things.

We have this hunger.

So let us contemplate the hand. The distance
of the hand.
The grasping of the distance.
The hollow of the eye.

Let us say we are walking into a building
we’ll not walk out of.

We know we’re all here
somewhere. The table is set.
There are plants along the window.

Out of curiosity. Out of the body
travel.

We consist of smaller things.
The curtains kept swaying.

We’ll tell each other about it.
We’ll accuse each other of not caring enough
about what we care about.

As we’re all folding
from our houses. Folding into the yards.

Our flaming streets. Our streets
in flame.