The New Brutalism

Those too were events that had stopped concerning us:

the starts and halts, the clouds we thought had all along been forming

at random like points of smooth aster in a dried field.

The map had been completed. The map itself

had been mapped by another map. We would work

we insisted to ourselves until the last grain of sand

had fallen from the top bulb, and yet

hadn’t the flow been obstructed long ago without

our taking notice? Nonetheless, the television

remained always on, the program changing at unknown

whims though we were convinced by our hand.

We had found the topic that in conversation—still

so important for moving things along toward comfort—

could replace the weather. And indeed the rumor

had seemed to grow without a source, like spring

sends the gullies gurgling with crud, distilling its fragrance

among the dim lamps of worn porches and into the very halls

of congress. The word was passing from lip to lip,

discreetly at first but gaining on us like the approach of a lost train.

I alone have escaped its impervious headlamp to inform you.

We had thought it would last forever: the blue sand stilled in its descent,

the end of labor awaiting us at the map’s considerate edge.