Pause

To hit “pause”
as in filmic reruns
having seen it before it keeps on in the doorway, down the stairs and
into the next day
the same abrupt

imaginings are already fact… I’ve learned to fear anything that
passes through the mind and even what the mind does not as yet know

before I know
it…
to adjust the pace I’m running first then a step or two (and
what’s between
the one and the other)

one link always breaking the most elaborate of plans a pause

film breaks into celluloid dust or finger smear prevents
knowing who and why and it does something to one’s innards as
well, drops down
into

a deadening of sensation or in walking, pausing

no longer desiring one’s desires even given such a practice

each event neutralized
as a stepparent steps into a vacancy with no past

between the book’s main matter and the afterward there’s a blank page
a pause before whatever’s to come

what will her face look like tomorrow, the day after,