The foot goes forward, yes.

Yet there are roots. And a giant orb

which focuses its cyclopic eye

on a moiré morning.

When the microcosm is dry—it's earth;

wet—it's water.



Water, reeds, electric eel: one possibility.

Sun, reeds, dust mote and mite: another.

Whatever the elements

(it's urban/it's pastoral,

it's empty/it's open), the theory says

it could always be worse.



Until it is. Then theory fails,

leaving a tracer mark.

From blood you come to blood

you go. Sudden things happen

inside a frame. A flame is

lit. Look



at those pathetic wiggly squiggles.

Inferno or garden?

An immeasurable distance

sizzles between them.

Watching it all. But taking so little in.

Just what will fit on the flat



of a glass lens. The ticker is hopeful.

Pathetic fallacy.

Look at the numbers move.

The mystery of ticks.

One per second, sixty per Mickey.

Four becomes ten, one in six



bombs falls in a bushel, a basket,

a two o'clock casket. Do you wish to stay

connected? The seen blurs

into the just heard. A bird outside the wide

open window. The warm day

of March. It changes. It has



all changed. The world

as a distracting disaster.

MY, what little SENSE you make, said the wolf

to Mary Jo. The theory rests

on a tipping point.

The clock steps in a direction.