Steam from the power plant, vapourising
at twenty below, casts turbulent shadows
into the seminar, obscuring smoke
swirling from the tips of Gitanes bleues.
Things to hold in abeyance, the better
to compose. As here in the text beneath
the fluff, tenuous tokens on a vacant
cerulean sphere whose grand nebulous
mesh’s measure cannot be captured in
integers, the fugitive traces thought leaves.
Bitter chill, numbing smell, sharpens sound,
deprives us of dimension, laying space bare.
And bareness is all we need, the scarce coin
of our rich empty inner kingdom.