It was the wrong time to negotiate
singularity in the back of the clown car.
Every room I am asked to enter leaves me
emptier than the one before it.
It is someone’s job to make living into a product
and to turn that product into a living.
None of my cynicism is peer-reviewed, so it’s been difficult
to secure anything more than adjunct dissent.
My constituents hose me down against the train car
in my slippers and my rucksack.
Confidence is ephemeral. I pilfer it
from life’s forgettable moments.
A clean run of syntax. Deadlift of arbitrary mass.
Midnight ideas of the Chicago Handshake.
Diurnal warbles of the odd, anonymous bird—
my memory has grown silent.
French fries only taste like their consequence.
Are these the autumn years?
At the philosophy luncheon, I am castigated
for begging the question about the potato salad.
It is someone’s job to make living into logic
and to turn that logic into meaning.
Every room I am asked to leave enters
the grey matter of my humiliation.
It was the wrong time to negotiate
relativism in the back of the cop car.
2025