intermission

the trick is leaving well enough alone
or leaving them when they've only just discovered you,
(observe)

a movie where, chased by mad harridans, you'll run soundly along streets filled
with parked cars and crumpled newspapers
background music boxing your ears
into submission, admission, admit it
you'll carry then for hours a ringing hum in the core of your being
(listen)

now, below you words appear, formed by the movements of your mouth
in white or yellowed, they appear
then disappear as words from one, as words from others
someone is killed or dragged screaming
from a burning house,
someone knows you've been making love to his wife,
a stiletto hung obliquely in mid-air
and the measure runs out