be put up on the top of the tree. Like a curious shop, the ships would sink if they were looked at too closely.

 

        Demolition would be too easy -- too obvious. There were other methods. Dented cans and high shelves, blueberry colored checkbooks, pissed off another year. Bluegrass music, or anything, would have been good to me. A truck going by would have made me weary of the  existence of other persons on this planet, so contagious.

 

        Proclivity not the greatest virtue. A spot on the wall corresponded with nightlight Horaces. Draining it for what it can tell. The quiet, not really so quiet. There is always a noise coming from somewhere. A disastrous pull into place. Baseboards throw off heat in a bad effort to provide comfort. Malignant tumors were never quite the same veneer on the wood surfaces they covered so nicely, given as a present by someone I vaguely remember.

 

       My effort, greedily accepted, hurts a section in the time that began too long into the past, and controlling monstrosities. Going to the bathroom in the night with footsteps fondling my walk. A talk reiterating nothing. Griddles turned on hoping to become flames.

 

        Steps, dances separately, singularly, to produce churning inside of the walls, produced nothing. An odd pattern enveloped the curtains hiding the oncoming slaughter, painted first by me.

 

    

A metal horse stands on my shelf. When the light shines just right it glares at me, no polished and exquisiste is that animal. A wooden man rides on it gallantly as though to command. The horse's eyes look like the man's. Direct, human black eyeballs. Sockets built of bronze.