The world is tumbling
apart, as it always does, as surely
as the globerock itself is always falling
and falling along the line of its rotation.
The economy collapses like a tent,
and I sit, minutes' walk from where they voted
the liferaft for it back under the water.
I sleep on the Hillhub, the fiscal epicentre.
And on this day
(who knows what it will bring us
in the end, our empire's deserved decline and fall,
its subjects undeserved crunching in the dustbowl
once again) I sat with you
in the bricked backyard, picking words
for you from feet away, and arranging them
ordered on the paper, words of no import
outside the dim circumference
of my ribs, of no gravity beyond my vertebrae,
at how I burn at every simple thing you do, how I'm stupidly
affectionate at how you leave your slippers in the hall.
The poppy of the human chest blooms up,
trying to construct the homes we don't remember,
reassembling all the more the task's impossible,
striving to string narratives together
as surely as the fire decomposes
the bonded order of the wood it burns.
The world is tumbling apart, as
it always does. O beloved: turn.
