There’s studied madness in opening bills after breakfast,
signing bank transfers. I clear my mind enough to know

a fallen stick of incense won’t burn the house,
to figure out the cassette’s lack of sound, the rasp

of its rotation, is my error not the answering machine’s;
side A not B is the voice, still there, metallic

in the renovated room without its furniture:
I’ll be he-e-re—the abecedarian of 4 am—

I know: Dinner time’s the best time. Talk to
you later—the manic laugh, disintegration after

successful surgery inside the frontal lobe.
Pick up. Pick it up! I am healed. Oligodendro-

glioma spreads its treeroots in the brain. If I
could have work to do, take aspirin and move on

instead of staring at the sad museum pieces
that pondering sculpts from love, as though understanding

were a place to live. If I could simply talk about
the damp closet upstairs, the milky trail of mildew

on black velvet, the yellowed dry cleaning tags.
Is the number on the scrap of paper 6 or 9?

As though knowing would be alchemy? Square one:
hot bitter brew, then the nothing that has to be done.

For an agitated hour I bundle one towel about
another in a ball, sort the light fabrics from dark.

Notre Dame Review 43 (2017)