PACKING (FIRST ATTEMPT)

At 10:31 a.m. I demand of my wardrobe,

Give me all you’ve got

because before lunchtime, I know I can at least

try to handle 31 shirts I rarely wear

and 10 pairs of pants identical, unworn.

It’s a morning thing to watch

entropy unfold before you:

to watch clothes laid out on the bed

inch outward toward the windowsill, the desk,

to watch folded sweaters slowly stretch their arms,

pull down their collars.

To watch disorder invade my closet,

to wonder what the ultimate result of unleashing

entropy upon this room could be: Will my clothes

expand in the space of the room, leaving

for me only an infinitesimal nook? Will they

act out my limbs and torso,

walk the streets as

imposters?

And where does that leave me?

 

KNOW THE ORDER

of the seasons, let chronology

unravel over your fingertips,

ardor of your maker slip

between the digits, the

numbers of a season, chanting

out their order to the bastion

May 22, 23, 24, 25…

Siren calling up to a dripping

crimson—Look at the sky!

Look at it. Why didn’t the

forecast say anything about

rain? I think I left my umbrella back at

home.

 

KNOW AN ORDER

What do you do when the white lines of a crosswalk

have been worn down? Keep crossing, would be my mom’s

advice. Throw it to an authority who’s dealt with this before:

the blurring of a crosswalk, a single-file line scrunched up

at a bottleneck, all signs of direction singed by the fire of

time’s dragon mouth as it swallows up a crumpled calendar.

Did we only get one chance to get the rules down on paper?

Check our predictions against the laws we were

handed? Told what a crosswalk was for before the lines

blurred away? Or is it generational? Instructions

passed through some tired syntax that just

stops short of getting the original message right.

Maybe one day they’ll paint back over the cross walk,

back over where they guess the original lines

once lay, missing by maybe just a micron each time,

until the paint puzzles off down the street, dictating the new flow of

traffic. They’ll keep crossing then, too, even when the lines fade.   

Know an order to the Universe,

and you’ll foible every time it acts according to its own laws,

predicted by an inherent migration toward disorder.

Know the logic of entropy and you’ll never be content

with the stars, off by just a bit since you last saw them,

with a suitcase lying open on the floor, clothes

crawling eternally outward.

What do you do when you suspect

that you’ve unleashed the atom bomb of the Universe

in your bedroom? Keep packing.

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