Comet Year
the spiral is a spiritualized circle
—Nabokov
How do you measure time?
You’ll know when the sun
pizzicatos between the houses
like a pinball,
when you’re stood up
in the bath scraping dread
from your skin like oil,
when you’re listening to
singing in a language
you don’t understand,
when comets glister and fizzle
like blue flowers in bike spokes.
The earth sways
on its tramlines into a dark
cupboard, submitting
to time’s fine thread, its
recoiled plan. Clouds rattle
on their strings in the dilute-
whiskey sky, crinkle down
like broken blinds. Forgive me
for becoming rags like this.
It was this rickety thing,
this celestial drag going by
at one second per second.
the spiral is a spiritualized circle
—Nabokov
How do you measure time?
You’ll know when the sun
pizzicatos between the houses
like a pinball,
when you’re stood up
in the bath scraping dread
from your skin like oil,
when you’re listening to
singing in a language
you don’t understand,
when comets glister and fizzle
like blue flowers in bike spokes.
The earth sways
on its tramlines into a dark
cupboard, submitting
to time’s fine thread, its
recoiled plan. Clouds rattle
on their strings in the dilute-
whiskey sky, crinkle down
like broken blinds. Forgive me
for becoming rags like this.
It was this rickety thing,
this celestial drag going by
at one second per second.
