if I don’t know what it is it could
be anything—a slue-footed, coned,
tail-bent galligarngion: so it is
helpful when words pinpoint, trimming
excess: this tape is so skinny: I
have to crack off the lines and roll
the trimmings back into the next line:
there is never enough room: the
lines have to digest something, pack
it down, shove stuff together: my
wife has a trimmings doctrine: she
thinks trimmings should be removed
from the premises: raked-up lawn
grass, leaves, dead branches, old
rose canes, squirrels’ walnut nibblings:
she doesn’t believe it’s right for
a red oak to have its leaves: she
doesn’t think anything should find a
way back into the ground: she doesn’t
want to wait for no “slow burning
of decay”—as Mr. Frost would say:
rake it up, she says, get the blanket
under it, pile it up by the road, let
them haul it off: mercy, I think,
what the hell’s wrong with letting
a little natural stuff help hold the
hill together: or why not see if a
little loam can drift out of decay
into soil and regrowth: but, no, it
won’t do: rake it up, clean it out:
strike the v out of archive and you
have another archie: well, we just
finished driving to Chicago and back
and we’s tired: oh, yes, yes, yes,
we’s really tired: plumb tuckered: