He stands there in that robe, the poet of Life of Frank, and greets me incongruously, not with sleep but some more insipid vapidity in his eyes. He looks ceded, the author of Little Maggot Existence, with his dress pants and gaudy blue suede loafers on under that robe, that equally-coffee-and-wine-stained stolen Best Western Turkish mimic. I can’t really tell if he recognizes me, if he recognizes any of this, if he remembers the interview or even the magazine, the visionary of A Brief Introduction to Astrophysics, he looks decidedly not home standing there in his doorway.

 

But then he raises his sunken head to meet my gaze, the bard of Examples of Defense Mechanisms, leaking that vandal’s smile, his eye’s blue momentarily orange, the mastermind of Dangerous Arithmetic says, once again,

 

“Come in.”

 

---

 

Loops

By Jamie Thomson

---

 

 

Walk tall! they said I walked

tall I hit my head I only hit it once

yet now look at me walk It’s pathetic

 

 

 

I stood around contemplating the many uses

of a fish There were so many! Then a bell

in the other room rang It being the era of the bell

I obeyed I entered the room It was so empty!

I removed the socks from where they had been draped

upon my ears and stuffed them in my mouth I began

to hop from foot to foot The bell ring was good

 

 

 

A sinking boat is bad for the people onboard

but a fun little brief new thing for the fishies

 

 

 

An old man died They put the dust in the corner Then

the maid fell sick She lay in bed The dust in the corner

remained The dust in the corner remained once the children

grew up and long after the door had been shut the dust

in the corner remained Little changed but they didn’t mind

They were happy that way They hid all sorts of things

in the dust in the corner Years passed and the dust

only grew The dust is now a mound No it is a mountain

not a mound a mountain of dust in the middle of that room

 

 

 

The last train was leaving Hop on!

they yelled The last train is leaving!

Where’s it going? I asked

It is the last train! It is leaving!

 

 

 

The light is on I see

the man The light is off

I can’t see him but know

he’s there I never sleep

 

 

 

I leapt out of bed The assumption

is categorically false! I cried out It was

nothing It was the middle of the night

I must have thought the rat in the corner

was someone else A distant train

let off some steam just then Sounding

the weeping of many small things

 

 

 

I missed my home so much I built

a little version of my home

in my head It looks good!

I fixed all the gutters Then

I killed the neighbors I mean

left them out I wouldn’t ever kill anything

except in my head It’s allowed