To dedicate oneself to writing contra the daytime empire equates to working five jobs, to be rewarded only with endless grime upon your thinking, & no pay.
          Any coin that falls is not likely to be legal tender, & leads you not to the source but to a sorry luncheon in a ditch. And alongside that pollen-stinking path by the disused railway are those silos jammed with pulped weekend liftouts. While walking, you are hesitant to greet the folksy, beanie-wearing ex-husband (he may well be the one wearing a wire). You refuse his offer of raw water, noting that the flooded train carriages form linked aquariums.
          Meanwhile, in some cordoned elsewhere, an unseated mind fades a shade of greenish white. Hush money crosses the tinted room, & futures markets smart as the meeting at the bureau is drowned out by the sighs of the birds outside. The dead are contented.
          You always wanted to become a translator, or a diplomat (& what is translation, if not an act of diplomacy?) Your dreams saw you grafting markers upon the century’s over-painted array. Yours was the drab game-board of unspoken geometries, yours the sword to carve the wax atlas.
          ‘Success’ may take many forms, but this, in the end, is not one of them. The thought strikes you: may as well’ve put it all on a dartboard! What kind of ugly mosaic led you here, after all?
          Grading into obscurity, the sun shrivels against some grim awakening that seems notionally yours.