Canticle

We placed the chair off –center so he could stare

at a digital universe in which he was useless

anymore, or so his refrain went, bent at his antipodes

glaring at the scene with one part disdain

& other parts some other things, identityless:

No, move it over there

he´d insist (as if) to maintain he was still intensely here

with the rest of us, although our taste (in t.v.)

was paining him infinitely; & ignoring its Brobningnagian

wheels, & the mismatched cushions, one more every year,

he sang along silently.

After he was done I had them fold it up & stash it

along with his polar bear blanket; I didn´t do it -:

(pudor, fear, pain) – there was nothing to gain by being

suddenly manly, the periferal remains

were left to other hands

while the real ones

mysteriously burned

& came phoenixly back again, brassily plaque´d, a bowling trophy

(if one had only known)

he would have abhorred & misunderstood:

& directly I began dropping things, in the middle,

the milk, the clock, the onion I was slaughtering,

all of it was grist, my everything, there was not a tune

I could find to hang onto