Object Lesson

1


That a memory,
caught and mounted

for permanent display,
is not much

like anything that happens
can’t be surprising.

But where does that leave us?
Night at the Museum,

the set pieces
in their comic

ignorance of one another
take the stage.


2


In this series,
he tosses her

on the bed
like laundry

as she struggles
irrelevantly

against the stickiness
of tape

and it’s just this:

the blind persistence
of her struggle

and his (feigned?)
indifference,

the way each proceeds,
blinkered and mechanical,

into whatever
this recreates
Source: Poetry (October 2015)