Metaphysique Du Mal

Sometimes in the quadrangled globe you feel

impossibly small, a mere pushpin with face

embossed on top, jabbed in place.

Say it's night in the kitchen, and those sprawled pages

hold notes for your oldest friend's funeral-your fifth

eulogy in five years. Bach's

measuring out cool intervals of pain.

The heavy appliances hum.

The cat circles the electric opener.

On your wrist, the gold watch back has gone cold,

its twistband pinching the pulse. From nowhere

you get the dumb urge to rummage

every shut kitchen space.

You stand too long in the freezerspill

of smoky Arctic starlight-rows of plastic boxes,

old soups and gravies

furred with frost, everything glazed in place.

And in the fridge, how long has that stripped carcass

shriveled there, legs widespread?

In the pantry, the lychee nuts eyeball you,

afloat in their ancient miasma of syrup.

These known realms make up your small odyssey -the breath

enters and leaves your torso

like a far trade wind. By dawn,

cupboards yawn on all sides. Mr. Bach is shut off.

Every dog-eared tome has been thumbed.

The single page says only, I had a friend who died. Cancer

ate her liver out. In your Timex

the noise shifts, the minuscule hammers

start tapping out now, now abruptly fast.