"terrorized by vagaries of head and heart"

        for Clara, Mark, and Anselm

This film is a fine actress, for we cannot recognize

Ourselves. The startle response aside, we cannot turn

Both ways at once; we cannot return

At all. This film is in our way.

This actress is another story, we cannot recognize

The narrative we had ascribed. The startle response is almost

Unavoidable. We veer a bit anyway, hoping

To turn again, to find the narrative we lost.

We admire the potential of the curtains, which is somewhat

Evident. We admire the aftertaste

Of the dream, which is neither evident nor potential.

We admire the heaviness of fact.

The details will all come out in the wash, a sequence

Of “as ifs,” glass shards, the idea of evidence as

a finite something or other. A finite hunch. A finite omission.

Any way the story ends. The story is in our way. The narrative we lost. The story ends.

Three Short Poems for Jeff Chester

I.

I guess that could be a short story, he says. Meaning, nearly getting run over by one's lover's wife.

Not a poem?
Maybe a poem.

He's on his third beer, I'm nearly done with my second.

Later I'll be cold, want to steal part of his cigarette. I don't smoke anymore. I never smoked.

Later the dogs will be fighting and I'll have to run downstairs.

Meanwhile, it's not a novel. A short story at best.

How short?

Twenty four hours later, a magic number, there is still the ghost of a cigarette on my fingers.

II.

We're speaking idly of cloning ourselves.

She's speaking of having a hand that works.

In some cases, perhaps, the event precedes the idea of the event.

III.

There is no pride in dissolving but there is the dissolution itself, which is not the same

as having dissolved.

This is not a story either. Solid and then not.

Once glass was said to be liquid but lately I heard on the radio

that it is not. Does this mean movement

has not occurred?

The windshield wiper blades on my car need replacing—there's a smear

every time they move across whatever we do or don't agree that surface is...

The glass itself. A definite volume but no fixed shape. Every time

this movement occurs. This is not the same as

having dissolved.