Adiabatic

                  down the sink : rushed water



funnels after fish entrails, or grease gives



a type of collapse 



              inward, frying in a pan



fennel-seasoned. An equation equates 



oil and flowers, fields and division. Descent



is a disintegration by parts. What is missing?



 



I want to peer down at myself from above



and point out algae. How my grandfather



took me to the pond 



    for the gutting of it—



one blink’s worth too much. Why isn’t there 



more inside? Why isn’t there more to bleed, 



protrude, be stripped? All these still stalks



 



come from somewhere. Fennel was a field,



was a marathon, was a death in a field 



under clouds of phosphate.



  I slice a fish



sideways and grasp at the inside. Now



things go quickly, death is its own mass



and caves in time toward the event, and



 



viewed from without,



each second slows to a whisper



                      never to cross



over. Here. Here seem all horizons 



to end the same, bundled up in one ribbon 



 



tucked between the teeth and tongue.