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 mumbling
in unknowable tongues
My children dream in their own geography
I have provided them a safe and sturdy home
My thoughts are a library of stories I
I can write down for them
My thoughts are a library of stories I
I can write down for them
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 stored in the ways of squirrels
My routines are set, 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 pegboa