The fox stares me down in one up-swelling
................................................. recollection, then spins
...............................psychotically in its cage. As if to say,
You’ve come such a long distance
............and escaped nothing.
I no longer know what to make
............of the hallways I’ve pressed into,
the well-bottom stairwells
............of the body I was, shucking itself
........................of gates.
Something unreasonable within me
...............................strikes a pose. And the pose says it
................................... says it all. Recalling voices
...............................glide the halls—the few good echoes
of the fugue—
......... come back as my minimals: a boy with a
trepidation: a shrug in the record,
......... a nostalgium; a bloom: crushed—
...................... —crushing,
despite years of yellowed pages pressing in.
