gibber

Not a loss but buried deep inside the nautilus the structure of the shell is all, the limit of the world within; above the water the sky combed in layers: blue then black then blue again, against all hope; everything in touch; the limits are transactional, mutable. when the sun comes out the lips of sky mouth open. birds tatter like confetti from the heavens onto sand, onto water. 

We eat outside in the summer. the neighbors play music from somewhere else, burn garbage, shout random language. we don’t speak to the sound, young and stupid, old anger. their backyard is filled with mannequins, silver positions of the clock, posed oblique; mid-party and holding air, visible from our upstairs windows. if I knocked an old man would open the door missing teeth.

The universe drawstrings us together; deep folds of nebulous cloth, redolent of old smoke, perfume, old sin; the texture of velvet, a stiff bristled mushroom of flesh; glass shatters somewhere below; the scratch of a needle being dropped onto a record, hissing, popping.