58. The Many Versions of Nothing

0.

taken in a place
where you sing and say where
you see what

or where you don’t see
whatnot in that place
where you be

or not
for there remains
the possibility

you do not
exist or exist
solely as a revision

of a past loss
still you know the many
versions of nothing


00.

(a rounded nothing)
is nothing that holds it
in holds it back


000.

there is { } and { }
and { } and the entire suite
of absence

hand in a pocket
pocket in a pant
pant on a tongue

multiple degradations
of referent and referral
of purpose and purple


0000.

you could sing to a [ ]
and sing [ ] [ ] [ ]
to a woman until

she believed you
were what you did
not say you were

you could find a < >
like a < > order in the
middle of on the street


00000.

an em(ty nothing


0000).

the frasing of it
has you fraptures
and forwards

you look for
, a comma’d nothing,
, commanded,

maybe a dozen
large feathers left behind
but no bird


000)).

deliberately
into blankness
blackness

white
and
black

two sides
of the same
nothing


00))).

reduction of
of the flat wall at your face
to a flat sense of stasis

light
to the point of
too bright

nothing can be
seen nothing
can’t be seen

0)))).

the sense of
( ) ( ) ( ) ( ) ( )
behind you

ticket for
a trip never taken
in the scheduled past


))))).

rivets and
rivulets holding
and slipping

making a way
of it out of
it

holding to the sense
that the nothing bending
behind you and

the nothing before you
are just the nothings
around you

in a little nothing of a funk
in a little nothing of a fact
in a little nothing at all