No Help for That | Jackie Clark

The lights controlled by some outside place,
sitting in unchosen darkness.
Saying the same thing, strained eyes and readjusting,
this routine weekly bartering.
We choose stories to tell, ones with arcs that reach the ceiling.
We put them in envelopes and write names on them.
Sensitive eardrums trailing through the pipes,
which deposit what they carry elsewhere.
There just isn’t as much to imagine anymore.
One red string.
Blurry and captured particles displayed in rows,
the origins of each described by flicking switches,
opening and closing the light,
revealing a passive mantle full of dusty jars
filled with pennies, their copper faces kissing in darkness.
There are not many little feelings,
but one large one with many sides,
like rolling quartz between ones fingers
or down the ravine, a product of a gap that has closed,
until all sides are smooth and indistinguishable.
The damn a final resting place for what cannot by nature adapt any more.
Instructions only so flexible, like when there is a glare and we squint.
Rotating vocabulary and present tense.
Metal guides its own way through the snow and we watch.