Two Dissolving Towels

(2013)

Two dissolving towels draped over

The left flank of a small steel fence,

Not eroded, but discolored, not

Rusted.

The right, sagging, an occasional

Nuisance to shut.

“You have to lift and jiggle it

A bit.”

A camouflaged baseball hat hangs

Where the wings converge,

Wedged snugly to secure as

Much as possible in this star’s ghost.

On a Sunday morning I see this and

Am saddened

That the man who has dirtied the

Towels with smudges of oil

Is not sitting with me, talking about

Baseball.

I do not care for baseball.

He is a coach for my brother’s team.

I expected to see him, squashing a

Half-smoked Marlboro in the ashtray

At the picnic table,

Nearing the end of a Stephen King

Bible.

Foolish, fresh anticipation.

I am twenty-three and still feel the

Need to be cradled, just
A bit.

© 2014 BENJAMIN SMITH

The Symptom of Sunsets

Black sky. Bleak sky. It is not enough.

No midnight mask can hide that

Jellied concubine, its rough shawl

Clinging to nothing, and calling for

Everything —

I am dutiful.

I am known to get the job done,

To pry the pickled fizz from the wall,

The floor, the crevices. There is no use in hiding. I will

Find you, metric centipede. I will

Bring you back, bagged and

Starched, ready for my digging

Hand, my heroic stance, thin and headless,

With your shy writhing answering the “whys.”

You are Exhibit ‘A’, Exhibit ‘B’, with a tail of

Ellipsis. Heed the critter, my reluctant flock.
Heed the critter and consider:

How am I to describe the symptom

Of sunsets? I, unoccupied.

A vacuum, a vacuum. A simulacrum.

How do I assign some elemental tag?

Ice? Shade? It is any other day —

The sun is a goddamned mole. The sky is

Emptied of its chip, gold or white.

So am I, so am I. A husk nearly

Dried. I am still. I am

Locked. I am hypnotized.

Here is your proof! The wriggling

Intestine of lenses. Eely threat of

Feeling. The never-level grows more aloof.

There is a certain comfort in

Numbness. A brother whose presence

I cannot sense in it. The conquering irrelevance,

The inherent sadness is so pretty, pretty. 
A pity it will kill me.

© 2015 BENJAMIN SMITH