i

What [ let’s don’t

say

who ] do

you trust?

And is it

[ let’s leave

alone    if you please

the question

of who

altogether ] is it

anywhere

near

you right now?

ii

Not what idea do you trust I mean a thing [ let’s even

disallow your fallback  gossamerity

that ghostly cobwebness

you’ve tolerated   too

long   in your mind ]

let’s say that

a thing   in order to count

as thing   must fall

if you let it go—

or sink if cast away      even if

it may surface   sometime again

like a bone-flake snowfall

like that gossamerity that noose like a weightless twisted body

like truth in dreams

iii

listing now the dangers

of looking

the other way [ let’s say looking

           but not seeing ]

while [ and here

we’d pause and detail exactly how ]

tolerance becomes romance—

. . . a kind of trance state, an American . . .disposition that operates

            outside historical markers; it favors staring over blinking.

—meaning while that thing that you call a thing

in your mind    as if

[ and here we’d walk—trace

anyway, possibly

take the M 60 to the airport?—the route

from here to there ]

iv

as if your mind were tethered   [ even by stretched-thin

            gossamerity ]

to your life

your life to an actuality            one you trust

[ delusion alert : it’s not ]

meaning while you let go that thing

you call a thing

and that thing it just hovers there    manifestly   unthingingly   in mind

v

in that space you now know

is mind

that thing you know now

is no thing

mind is

you thing now that know

vi

so no not that not thing no   I mean a thing you know

by texture        trust by touch

no not fingers

[ ok, now let’s only allow things to be things if you trust

them

by tongue by press by salt and

solution ]   and so you may know who you are

by the taste-shape

of the letter   even if approximate

by the shape you assume          [ when I ask

you what I’m not

ever supposed to ask you ]

when you’re alone

like you

imagine you are

right

now when your tongue pulls you down   again   to go there