". . . what the little word after means . . ."
—I. Kant, Inaugural Dissertation, 2.399.4-6
Stuffed September night, the hot leaves bump
on swollen breezes and a fat
black moonlessness.
I got up (3 am)
to clean the house, there was
so much pressure on it forcing the butt end down.
I scrubbed counters and mopped floors.
I didn’t turn the lights on.
Cleaning
in the dark makes a surprise for later. By then
I will have
slept, woke, come striding back
from infuriated interiors—ah
now
recall
I dreamed Of Wordsworth—his little vials,
Wordsworth collected little vials,
had hundreds of them, his sister stored them on shelves
in the pantry—
and yes
to inspire me is why
I put in a bit of Wordsworth but then the page is over,
he weighs it to the
ground,
the autumn of him soaking my mop purple in the dyes of
what's falling
breathless under its own
senses.
-- Ann Carson
