Appetite (10)

He'll let the culture/lingo do.  He'll set
in chosen worlds such commotions at hedge-depths,
and, in front-lit, peeled-open space, set

first lines of hedges yellowing, finishing winters
as these will, finished with drizzle and chill
and ash and sold for good, deeded by these to him

or to the hands of the State buyers.
To keep the routes on schedule, or bring the families
into light, that had been housebound

here a century, and the great machines to light,
pawing their ways through hardscrabble
and harder crimes.  He thinks of himself and properties,

drawn and redone, and what's become of ashes
and degrees of heat, exciting a hand
that meant to fathom multiples, to be moved again

by scale, or by these women drawing him,
pleased to find ways home to households in his sketches,
and find themselves to such a life,

among his props at ship-tables, like seams,
starburnt and situant, relieved to be some place,
to take up light that once

throbbed wash-day maintenance, or this light,
buzzing new environs and train times, mishandled
magnitudes, breaking away from flesh

as preconsidered company.

 

© Robert Lietz