Flea Tamer’s Lament

It’s not the life of a flea tamer or flea circus operator that I strived for—but it’ll do for now.

I look down on the swaying treetops—instead I see a roiling ocean—the wind hypnotic.

A central air conditioning unit just below my balcony—it says it wishes to condition my hips. My condition will surely be one of rendition from frothy blades.

My past has become pointedly polyptotonic, and the polyptoton will morph into antanaclasis … antanaclasisism—ant, ana, clasis, ism—break, break, break this off!

An exercise in moving my hand across the page—or thumbing tippy tips on gorilla glass—becomes existential glaze.

Mark-making on empty spaces—sometimes proscribed by lines, sometimes not.

That is my life. Just saying. I’m here.

“I asked if /
I could survive knowing
that not everything has a reason,
that not everything is capable
of or interested in reason /
Nothing answered.”

— Paul Tran / “Hypothesis”