Aches

for Alli Warren



Today the observation deck is ringed

in clouds, which must be why reception’s

going in and out like a lakeside crowd.



Memory is a function of

the shirt I’m wearing, its graduated

stripes bleeding into the space between.



I’m being called on to speak. What

can I say but what’s already said

in the course of history, hardly



heard before it generates

its opposite, warning me about

the submerged rocks, the shallow bed.



Around the cardiovascular rotunda

we’re ringed like men, fooled into

thinking we’re not looking at ourselves.