At this o’clock, hour of no hour,
in the mathematical quadrant
of existence, the island settles
into its own grasses and sands
shedding day’s seconds
by addition and deletion
in a sun of greens and golds,
multipliers of blues, puzzle pieces,
earthly collections of equations physicists
claim to be relative sums of the universe
and the foundation of all thought
In this formulation of sequences,
I have done all those things a man
does at the end of the compartments
of any given day:
sawed life into fragments, hammered
ideas with dull nails, wiped up, swept up
its leftovers, trashed mistakes
The woman sleeping next to me exhales softly
in predictable rotations and mumbles
in unknowable tongues
My children exist in their own geometry
I have provided them a life in currency
that can be counted and locked away
The house can be made warm and cold
electronically against the weather
I give and take away light in a click
Water flows within plastic streams;
food is hidden in the ways of squirrels
My routines are down, the management
of minutiae no longer haunts me
I know where I can find things:
my wallet, car keys, pencil and paper
Tools are hung metric on a pegboard
where I can call on them by hand
in the dark for late night emergencies
A battery operated lantern sits waiting
for random acts of the universe
I am finally content to let go the precarious
The book on my bed table lays
spread open flat on its binding
to mark the chapter I am in
My chest rises and falls under the sheet
in stories that can be written down
Everything is no thing;
everywhere is a nowhere that
cannot be located on map or globe
It is I who is place and thing,
a primary number of one,
deposited naked and alone
where I am and am not
And now everything is in its place
with nothing more that needs accounting
Tomorrow is another fantasy
The puzzle of the rest of life
has tumbled out of a combination
that allows me to rest by this open window
in a breeze whirling over my skin
and a last glimpse of the stars