X.
Things would just
be so much
easier
if this whole thing
was flat
and boring. I mean—
a little kid
can hardly be expected
to use
trigonometry every morning
when he has
to determine
where in the world?
his whole
world
keeps going.
Y.
Day after day,
hurtling
through space—
just the dizzy thought
of that
accelerating effort, so
unfathomable
that it made you go
crazy
with certainty
that everybody just went around
lying
to you
about every-
thing
all of the time.
Z.
I watch your car pull away
every day,
I see
spinning tires, hear
them groan,
but think—
about how the dead center
of a wheel
doesn't go anywhere,
and I know
there must be
something clever
about us
in that idea somewhere—
not because
it's a metaphor, but because it's
a thing
which doesn't mind being seen,
but which
doesn't ever want to be
known.
