A CLOUD OF DECISIONS TRANSLATES

Matt Hart

We own the horizon, so draw it out

in one giant breath full with a rolling green

oxygen tank and some horses

underneath it     It is a landscape

we can walk into a nursing home

eventually     I feel the way

you and everybody must, after all

these long delays like ice cubes melting

The most meaningful things never wind up

in a window, but sometimes they do

in the belly of a buzzard or a girlfriend

I’m so tired of walking into this house

and knowing that it’s not my house

and won’t be my house for several more days

I need a place to wrest this motorcycle

from chance, which is art, so lay down

my pillow on the head of a pin,

crushing all the winged things

to powder for the baby pigs

I think this is what it means to amplify,

but it just as well might mean

I don’t know where I live and should

make amends with the sky

and all my friends who ever

rummaged through my backpack

looking for a hangover or some

fog to rub against themselves

I’ve got plenty of fog      You don’t

even really need to ask for it but

probably should as a matter of empathy

and forgiveness for all the times

I’ve stolen everything,

from your heart to your headstone,

then lost all of it trying not to

in the couch or the forecaster’s

high in the 50s and rain all day

I always take the weather

around me so personally,

when, mostly, nothing’s such a big deal

that we couldn’t just go to a diner

and slam some scrambled eggs,

then look up at the night sky

and wonder