❀ Jason Fraley
        
✾ Self-Portrait With Morning Or Night Or Guantanamo Bay

        The hum isn't garrulous.  I repeat:  the hum isn't garrulous.

        Rule #1:  every object—arugula salad splashed across the sidewalk, my saddled courthouse hero—is an alveoli machine.

        The heirlooms.  The third-shift janitor, arm sleep-blurred robotic.

        (His vacuum:  see Rule #1.)

        The heirlooms.  The watchman asleep in search of a darker dark through which no signal can penetrate.

        Moscow scrapbook.  On bended knee before a wildcatter's fantasy.  Rope and hood:  an executioner's dream catcher.

        Mr. Red Light, Mrs. Blue Light, I'll make you a promise between pulses.

        When I land, I'll be on fire.  Study the steady orange bursts, which trigger the hum to empty itself entirely save for one recognizable voice.

        An heirloom.  From the charred carpet.  


        
✾ Self-Portrait With Misguided Prophecy II

        Praise the ampersand because tomorrow doesn't mean horses
        or swords, but windows that burst open like a tightly tied

        dress with loose seams.  & those below shall praise the ice,
        early winter, fireworks stored too long in the freezer.

        Blood?  It's their own, a byproduct of abrasive lakeside
        breezes.  & poor diet.  More vitamins.  & raspberries,

        just out of season.  Praise evening because it's a moving
        target, an architect's invention & cloned lover.

        Not that those below are aware.  Praise glass, the reflecting
        pool atop concrete.  Light bouncing everywhere 

        and ever-brighter.  & praise the moment.  Long enough
        for darkness to reinvent itself as a sound, however faint,

        as a pinstriped body too heavy for the sky alone.
        
        
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