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At the gate I told the blond ranger a man headed
straight into me as if he’d knock me down
or walk right through my body a door She smiled
said for some it’s a meeting place I had to run a long way
to reach the tiny buildings for them to grow to a size
I could enter At the police station they already had
the facts I’d given I asked the cops to check
if intruders were in a yellow house I’d lived in fifteen
years ago on Summerlin wondered how I would
ever be safe the lock on the back door unstable
Lots of calm cops assigned to me & I was set on a dais
to be questioned One cop pulled out box after box each
one labeled “Box of…” something like Box of the Underworld
but not underworld the words were of this world
like Box of Sit in the Car Box of Cloaks for the Traffic
Box of Actual Labor Box of Temporary Relief Box of
Smallest Efforts Box of Matches Box of Repair Methods
Box of Humdrum Box of Overnight Temperatures Box
of Nuts & Bolts Box of Oxygen but not that not those
& the cop would announce each box by its name labeled
on the side in magic marker then ask me a question
from the box & houses were faraway though plentiful
as if I were in a field in a painting perspective made
everything small & distant
Once in a game on a make-believe desert island I wouldn’t
save anyone I let them all fall off into the carpet that was
the ocean I was trying not to drink again but did
disappearing into other rooms I could feel them willing
me to scream quietly & be caught which was hard
to resist the weight of their wanting.