ISSUE: Spring 1983
Nothing can come of nothing. Speak again.
Dearly beloved, let me make this deposition.
Item: that I am now and always have been
Innocent as charged. That I didn’t do it,
That I’ll never do it again.
Item: that this morning’s wind shook me up
As it shook our birch trees, spinning the leaves
So they gleamed white in the yellow morning light.
Item: that the redemption of the world
Won’t take place next Thursday. That the riot
Dedicated to truth and tranquillity has been canceled.
Item: that the possessed will inherit
Blank time, blank space, blank prose:
Words without eyes, words without hands, words without
song.
Item: that something may yet come of nothing.
Speak up girl and save the old man from himself.
