We can assume we weren’t here
for any real reason other than
to rest but what solace to retch
with a staid view of the river
and psychosomatic barrier islands
of the self the neurasthenic riverain
with its racket of birds impossible
to make out except as swatches of color
impossible to hear through thick windows
impossible to wear as these drab vestments
we hold to us so thinly all
its liminal properties we called panic
when we peeked beneath the couch cushions
and saw the little ink marks
that could have been crushed
bed bugs or leakage from lost ink pens
sixteen floors up they take us
when vomitous dread leads
to entomological talk we are insects
reduced to talk of brains tricked
by nervous systems a clutch of talk
a film on the mouth a mouth
of film yawning from an aperture
an epistemological metaphysical problem
back where the talking cure was written
the question is this thought ostensive thought
can what we feel be rearranged
narcosis of the strait
where the shipping channel cuts