XV

DEFINITIONS XV

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I wish I could sleep outside: not by exertion, god forbid, just by being there, where the leaves are a logic no one’s invented, operating on their own silence. Who couldn’t you meet there?

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If there’s even a single tree in my mind I’ll be happy: when do we get to find out; is a tree something you can’t see, languaging wordlessly, its thoughts at arm’s length?

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A new ferry between the ruined pillars: one returns to the old places, but it takes a lifetime to be young again, arrive at what’s there; to read is to be backwards, at last undoing those first awkward steps from the sea.

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That sea’s still talking to me: it’s how I know I’m awake but who cares, no one knows I’m here no one will know how I pushed my fingers through the waves how gulls roosted among the proclivities and I didn’t dare snatch the sun anymore I didn’t dare kill them; how they’re the only ones who can answer.

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Did you notice the stars: perceptions faster than you remember to be; what happens when they all return to this position? Is that when someone asks you the same question?