FROM THE REFRACTORY.

Out of all hooping   skirting all borders
taking on all comers   flirting with totalities
for a second's fragment   they split
coffee break over   dancing   singing
just a slob like one of us. . .
Policy didn't cover this & no safety
guidelines were broken though bent
was considered usual. One singer
doubled as manager which gave
forensic carte-blanche to the enterprise.
The convex mirror caved in as they rounded
the corner colliding with an obstacle
left there by last week's pessimist-
of-the-week. A stubbed toe was the damage
borne with equanimity & Tylenol. That stranger
on the bus was rumoured to have planted it,
". . .the kind of thing he'd do", nods of assent;
"always trying to interrupt narrative", uproar
of approbation.
                     The difficulty met melting
this back into the general schema was
taken as read. Rust-clogged bronchioles
clustered on the X-ray pin-pointing
fall in the Adirondacks. The Unusual
Incident Report stated you'd be
hard-pressed to draw inferences from
this to assist in a future poetics:
"Theory is unusually anterior," it concluded.
Winter was coming but the pipes lagged behind
declining the fix.