Two O'Clock

i am not home
and the coffee in the machine is stale already
my staple remover    has teeth
sings to me    even though it was supplied to me
by the office

o aria
o i feel my head floating with your song
the desk's    grey    barrenness
like a dead ocean on a dead planet
and my desk calendar
like an iceberg that still has it together to glitter

the clock is like a sun
a two-dimensional ball
and just before the long hand reaches the twelve it clicks
every hour    above the prattling of the dot matrix printer
i hear it:    the music of the spheres

from Purgatorial (2004)