There’s no sighing our way out of this — the mundanity of a flat liveable city,

long drives late at night to swing legs over the concrete aqueduct and listen

to the freeway sing. A slow breath blooms on the mirror. One thing’s certain:

mirrors are no substitute for desire. In dreams I eat the silverware, my pupils

turn into dinner plates, rivers stream down my bare arms into an overflowing

percolator. A great many changes keep occurring and I’m surprised to find

I can tolerate them all. A cloud is also other things: rain droplets, ice crystals,

a sheep; an old photograph that stares and stares at itself. Someday, I will know

what it’s like to love a beautiful thing for itself first, rather than for what my

looking transforms it into. I rise at first light and pluck a fresh roll of film from

the nightstand. My eyes are twin bulbs already flashing, becoming and becoming

and becoming. Here I go, sockless, into the garden again.