where life refuses its flatness, forgetting
it has nothing to do but sound, no job

no instructional manual

                & then someone said the death of a scream
                & then someone said weeping in the tangerine

glow of the check engine light & then someone,
of the spring sky, almost distressingly bright and blue
beneath stillstark brownbarren trees, said you’re still expecting
a backdrop that’s raw and gray with uncanny specificity

                & then someone said the end of rainbow
                & then someone said like the closet, the attic is

no solitary act & if the whole is dark enough
                any squiggle can call itself a flower.