Structure

A box he hadn’t finished making the bottom of

A box he didn’t construct the bottom of

A box he hadn’t finished constructing

A construction he never boxed

A box he didn’t get from the liquor store

Not believing you or anyone

A box he couldn’t bother

Swans in the water were a bottomless construction

Who could get boxes at the liquor store

Only every esteem he couldn’t finish—

Aromatics, hyper-vigilance, the insignificance of passports

It doesn’t count if you can’t lift it

You were always finishing from the lip

Unfolded and immobile as a huff

Of fingerprints on gemstones or lunation

An armful into a box only stood the sides of

Its bottom the red arabesque on the rug

We could see right through it

Porous ambulations mean skin is a silent film

I can only house you on my sides said the box

Flaps splayed around like peplum

Or a man’s collar detached on the nightstand in the 19th c.

Its wings an evening around a box

Wax and blood disappear equally when they reach the bottom

A false equivalency dull as fingerprints on gemstones an index

Of waxen trespassing fines and plate-glass

When they land, you can’t see them in the same way

Opals of compounding interest

Water filled with a surface of swans was a bottomless construction

Most crescents are constructs you can hear

Dangling or modifying on behalf of the moon

A box for whose bottom he hasn’t collapsed