52/377: Machine

[rejectomorph]

About half past eight o'clock this morning, the furnace came on. It only ran once, for about four minutes. There's a chance that it was the last time it will run until fall. I won't miss it. well, maybe I'll miss it a little when the louder air conditioner has been running all day. Ideally I wouldn't need any machinery altering the air at all, but that's not the world I live in. I live in the world where I can get too cold and to hot and sleepy and too tired to sleep. That's what I'm about to get. I'll just do this:




Sunday Verse

Standing on the Streetcorner

by Edwin Denby


Looking north from 23rd the vast avenue
—A catastrophic perspective pinned to air—
Here has a hump. Rock underneath New York though
Is not a subject for which people do care.
But men married in New York or else women
Dominate the pavement from where they stand,
Middle-age distends them like a vast dream
While boys and girls pass glancing to either hand.
Sly Carolina, corny California
Peculiar Pennsylvania, waiting Texas
You say what you say in two ways or one way
Familiar with light-reflecting surfaces.
Time in every sky I look at next to people
Is more private than thought is, or upstairs sleeping.