from “Kushim”
ii. If no one’s anywhere…
If no one’s anywhere, then nowhere’s anywhere.
After the screaming, people outside screaming, me
In my muck, screaming…..in my head, then in a chair,
Mid-living room, mostly…..out loud, then finally
Out loud and at a window, my head empty of
All thoughts except for those thoughts incidentally
Suggested by stray leaves—one…..far off, just above
A stalled car, tumbling in the I guess wind, one near
The window, tumbling, stopping, seeming then to move
Woundedly,…..stuttering across the ground, and fear-
fully,…..its limp imposed by the uneven lawn,
Living things like it snagging it. The…..next day, near-
ing seven, dazed, I walked to the dead mall, now gone
But me, the mind of the world,…..and paced in circles in
The parking lot, how many…..minutes, ten? the dawn
Entangled in the residue the leaving, when
They left, left…..in the sky, ten minutes mumbling,
The clocks still working, time still working, hadn’t been
Twenty-four hours since every living, moving thing
But me, then moving, left or they were taken from
The Earth.…..I tried to work out what was happening—
Had happened, but…..was happening, and would be some
Months later and so long as I was still alive,
Is still now happening, me here, and didn’t come
As would before have come, a next perspective driv-
ing past, usurping my frail claim…..by seeing it.
I paced, and kept the spot I paced. Where could survive
My inattention, the world smaller when I sit
Because I’m lower, the horizon nearer?…..I
Paced in a circle. Nothing was revealed. The lit-
tle traffic island trees said nothing, and the sky,
Nothing, and the little traffic island trees were bare
With death,…..that after I have died will never die.