I could gather up old thoughts the way a mind distant in love brings about a gathering of stars. I don’t want people thinking

I don’t care about the future. Plenty of people are wrong about how I feel. For instance, I bought a bar of soap to remind me

of a clean time coming, the smell of it. Even I wasn’t right about how I was feeling then. Embattled by a sense of honor,

I plotted to bring the smell of Lysol like metal on teeth straight into the future. Some thoughts, being in them feels

like a battle to let a rare look inform me of how delicate and uncrackable I am. How like an egg I can just roll myself

under the heart in the exact right way, let it exert its pressure on my poles and never crush me. The stars,

a gathering of paper under which we may be crushed. I was about to be proud. I felt a late wish of pride unfurling.

When we arrive from distant cities cracked with love I don’t know if I’ll want my new hands to work any differently than the hands

I stashed in the drawer. And yet by the smell of the gathering sky I am arranged and disrupted!