franze & ilse

a misty rocket sky between father and daughter, he's all brass gears and clouded vials, obliviousness and blinders to destruction, driven participation in her slaughter, she's different each time but always distant, a waif, cool then familiar, lukewarm, eyes auburn now chocolate, while the mist is swirling through the park, braiding around the spokes of the turning ferris wheel and her dangling legs, he feels he's apologizing but he doesn't understand why, "no more stories past today, i'm sorry i'm sorry i'm sorry" she's not listening, she's washed away, he's washing her away, tinkering habitually unthinkingly with this vast death machine, year after year their reunions at the park, increasingly strange and quiet, don't loosen his grip on the gearshift, her hand and her hand and her hand pass in front of his focused eyes unseen



waking up suddenly early saturday morning and happily realizing you don't have to go to work is like being a kid again, hearing that school's been canceled cuz it burned to the ground along with everyone in it and police don't have any leads save an eerie note glued to the disfigured statue of the school mascot that reads:



+ 0 #3
dun dun dun dun dun dun
look at the detail here
sew shut slow slut
WHAT- your steamy valves
"because you are a puppet"
or "i am not a doll"
crystallizing dark fears
glow on imprisoned woman
legs crossed arms crossed
face bejeweled with tears

lead with a picture

around the reservoir are many white specks-
distant birds-
swept by the wind
pushed into the rocking water
streams of people, runners
furthered on a little
not by the wind- by something ahead

the city jewels the bowl of water
magnified and reduced, in close quarters
to a toy crown
with little specks of dust of people and birds
gliding in hoops, looking like playing

(one speck, moving within the bowl
gazing at backsides
imagining frontsides
grimacing or crying, gazing at backsides
--the path of a beautiful athlete
forms a chain of longing from person to person--
not knowing the link behind
spurred on by
not knowing the link ahead)

while the city is watching
looming and drawing inward by shadow
by setting sun, gems glittering less
on the dust inside