infinity sessions - tr hummer

[psychedelicate]

“
Zero

Zero balance. Double entry. Every accounting method
Failed. There could be no question of error or ignorance—
His omniscience was intact. But still the recalcitrant numbers,
False sums, disagreement. And the office needed cleaning.
So many outdated records, reports, bits of paper, dust.
It was exhausting to think about. He’d just give up
And go home, if he had one. But even to look out the window,
Where clouds of dark matter accrued and disbursed
And spiral nebulae wobbled unreliably, panicked him.
This was not the job he’d signed on for. There were people
Waiting for results, for the traffic light to change, the cell to divide,
The wounds to numb, the dead to file their forms.

 

[psychedelicate]

her body at thirty
bends toward
the certainty of disaster
like a plant urgent for light
planning dinner she
imagines the raw slice of the knife
through her finger
the whirling trip to the emergency room
in the evenings she
sits by the window alert
for the murderers
who cross her backyardshe has even—
married just two months today—
pictured herself a widow
in this house
where she populates each room
with dangers
the way children of hunger fill
their cupboards with foodand still she fashions each day
as if it must be a lifeboat,
as if today might be
good enough to last.