Adam Burbage

May 17, 2006


The slow cascade of dignity
pondering the political poem as the
afternoon scatters
like      clouds             breaking
                      up
                                 far       away
behind the thin, uncommitted drizzle
behind the door, left ajar the
            circumference of possibilities
shrinks, and is captured in a language
that has precisely nothing to do
with the length of the grass
resolutely uncut

the burning of garden refuse filters
imperceptibly behind a neighbour's fence
colder now, and with less feeling
                                                [shivers]

anger distilled as a viable commodity
exhilarating, like a clock ticking round to five
& evening now official, and federal
jagged like curtains that won't pull to
not so much retreat
as reveal

grasping for synonyms during a
suburban interlude.