Similarly
How are we to understand
This blank carcass of whim

But then how are we to understand
This sunset this flight of birds
This fire set under an overpass

I want to eschew autobiographical reference
But I’m in so deep now
I can’t retrace my steps

I want like the master
To let objects tell the tale
But they don’t connect and there is no tale

Or maybe the mind or the brain or whatever
Deduces a tale where there is none
Very like a whale

We repeat ourselves we homo sapiens
Like addicts like OCD patients
Recursion of impulsive carcasses

The rut becomes clear only later
This much is plain as always
The festering symbol of shy invention

A logic of averaging out
Of augmentation
Both ends against the middle

But since there are never simply two
Our tertium quid remains
Quite flat and ineffective

And a world persists outside ourselves
Where untold corollaries assemble uncertainly
Cold and wonderful

The locus of incapacity
Sharpened as one applies the tools
The fateful and forgotten implements

The healthy or harmful habits
The appliances we use to sustain them
Supplement this descent into decay