We all believe that we are asleep
in the same bedroom in which we always have been—
typich nook and curl and warming—
we all believe that we are asleep
in the same bedroom, the bedroom
the same difference
of distance fixed
from the train tracks—
context, then, nothing
save the space traversed
by the whistle of the train
as it settles itself into our ears,
our bedroom, our little private warming.

In our bed with the whistle
we imagine the whistle brings
the contours covered
from the tracks to our here;
we trust that the sound bears
in its bringing a definite relief,
the topography of one way
through our periphery
in exaction, infallible replication,
certain covenant of place—
we think of a sentence to greet it.

What am I doing awake?
What am I going to do different tomorrow?

We self-address, the shape of our space
intruding our typich nook—

no sentence we can make sufficient;
no sentence to represent this gradation,
none as rigid as these minute dells
depressed
across the ways
across this space.

__

Of all the ways in which the human mind manufactures, instantaneously, an abstract spatial representation of its material surroundings, I am, at present, most intrigued by the role of the voice in this intuitive mapping—the voice issued as to gauge, by the temporal intervals of its return, each distance surrounding the speaker, a kind of echo, a reflexive call and response. This piece wonders if that method might be applied to an object, the ability projected unto the inert. It seems then that instances of dominance or decoupling or spatial estrangement occur. Quite basically: Where am I? [link]