Three ducks or the great outdoors

An earthquake with no loss of

lives. But the three godforsaken porcelain

ducks on the goddamn mantelpiece

are no longer irreducibly aligned.

The whole house resembles her son’s

room. Objects existing in plentiful

chaos. Peaceful cohabitation is catastrophic

contingency, catastrophic or not. Every room

is the anticipatory aftermath of an explosion.

Will have been messier than words.

Have been will find her blank mind

excessively full with the real terror

of desire which shapes her thoughts

Before she thinks. ‘I’ is the local

cosmos stool-animal barfing back at itself

until uneventfully falling apart

constellation of dim flickering lights

in purest darkness blink

unconvincingly and blacken absolutely.

Realigned porcelain ducks disappear

beneath reconfiguring dust. Sometimes

something moves, usually

the quiet is close to the absolute

silence written about in places.

‘In’ corrodes every wall of the house

as if there were ever inside.