wb :

scritch of computer
conversational
much harder than we thought, a poem
much harder than a rock
tinkle of keys
like the stones on the bed of a brook
burbling in some childhood scene.
breath issuing from a nostril
he's had a childhood illness and only breathes through the left one
an exigence of air like frustration or exertion as he roots
through his tattered soul for fragments of beauty, only finding
the click of fingernails and the roar of a generator.

movement of a chair. underneath his weight the world shifts
infinitesimally
the world moves infinitesimally the floor tiles an immeasurably tiny distance away from his feet
suddenly the walls are strange.
suddenly the air is different from this infinitesimal movement
above the world his weight shifts
movement of a chair.

crickets. The idea is almost laughable. he closes his eyes and imagines them
perched on a gaggle of rocks outside the ground floor window
some demonic creator's plot device
he knows he should laugh but he trembles 'chirrup'
with the crickets.
the bustle of a fan cools his back
gives him air for a sigh
there is no home in the night-time only the creeping dread that with each tick of an old clock the universe shifts an infinitesimally small distance away from him

but elsewhere in the vast emptiness the air aches with the silence


adam