How to be = 
being. Perceive 

us, A&P parking lot in determinate 
dusk, grandiose 

hazes fill up the sky. 
Are the sky. 

Shiny, cheerful aisles of plethora. So encouraging, 
talkative, like a small town, overlit mutter 
of—two shapes: choice 
or square, two durations: a year 
to a day, these substances: flesh, sheened 
cardboard. Appetite 

as a function 
appears dumb, 

cartons eager and 
unctuous, idiot 

surface gladhanding. 
Money as dumb. 

And transacting entry or exit, gracious hiss 
of the sliding back, chilly 
exhibit, nature. We in the ice-case 
reflector, caught, given 
back surplus + 
influx, ugly crustacea or jetsam and flotsam, old 
Vladimir, young Estragon. Sea-wrack or hunger and 
aspirin. Push 
at our tissue, circadian 

flaring of hothouse and peatmoss on sale 
in the mall portico. Cough-syrups carny 

the liquor store. So we 
touch. We 

are touching. Ellipsis of temporary sugar 
crust feeds at our mouths, hot 

expiry, chrome baskets fulsome 
in floodlight. Cornucopic 

mess in their stanchions and car engines 
billowing vapor, emitting 

a cloud that is separate and mingles 
with ours and fades. Toxic particulate heightens 

the colors that augment or gaudily 
bleed, and waves exchange 
stress with the traffic, low 
constant muffling roar—wait, merge—constant 
comforting low muffled roar.