His music thrills me.
He sweeps up trash.
I have stabbed trash with a nail on a stick.
The sun poured down its condemnation.
During his songs I see brief glimpses of my dreams.
The basilisk curls up and sleeps between my feet.
For some reason it does not want to kill me.

I like the name Bellorussian Autocephalus Church.
I’m leaking all over the endless sidewalk.
It’s hotter than panic.
It’s hotter than wu-wei.
You know, non-action. My movie is sold out.
Living through today would be easier in a cow town.
But at the end of the week you’re expected to attend church.

I have one air-conditioned room and I’m going to a movie.
In Southern Colorado in the mountains it’s beautiful, there are sand dunes.
The prairie is not boring, it is outrageously philosophical.
Jaime sits outside his store.
Mr. Choi hates his store.
In America even I could have a little store.
Some days I forget we’re more than a movie.

Grandma looked at the clock and it was twenty to one.
I just fell in the river, grandma knew, she came running.
When she died the clock died in the car.
Like you I won’t let go of anything out of loneliness.
A species of red bird was important to her.
Her symbol was a rose that blooms in Arizona.
When a stranger on the A train asks me, it’s twenty to one.

Some guy says Wittgenstein proved there’s no thought without language.
Wittgenstein had never seen a bird or a bear.
Trees swayed in the park and their tops touched tenderly.
Even though I’m the youngest, I am the teacher!
On the roof the crows caw at me, and can’t land.
I wake without language, I am indistinguishable from the washed-out morning.
All I am is thought without language.

MATTHEW ROHRER is the author of A Hummock in the Malookas, which won the 1994 National Poetry Series and was published by W.W. Norton; Satellite; Nice Hat. Thanks. (with Joshua Beckman); the audio CD Adventures While Preaching the Gospel of Beauty; and A Green Light. He grew up in Oklahoma and attended universities in Ann Arbor, Dublin Ireland, and Iowa City. He lives in Brooklyn and is a poetry editor of Fence Magazine and Fence Books.