Nowhere Is Also a Place

Very often when I listen to the list of

my previous jobs, I wonder if I exist.

     — Mandelbrot

A murmur of clouds and I’m all wind,

newly crowned king of scatter in the yard

lying three clicks south of the House Speaker’s

lawn, which is plush green as his wallet

and immaculately tended though he’s odious

as a PB-and-onion sandwich.

A sprinter at dawn will be a marathon runner

by dusk is the kind of prophecy we can count on.

A trace of civet reminds me of an intangible wound.

The girl in glasses and heliotrope-colored undies

who’d belt out French pop songs in the kitchen.

There it is: another fib masking in the form of hope.

Because nowhere is also a place

and zero’s the numerical equivalent of now,

some days my driveway looks like it’s waiting

for the space shuttle to land.

Where we are a theoretical topology of touch.

In physics, a particle has been known to tunnel

through mountains. It can be argued that sleep

is a form of deep-sea divination where the brain

glows like coral. Breathing a pleasant

derangement where anemones are blowing

in tomorrow’s radiant breeze.