on a morning like this morning (Intellectual Honesty)

by lisa pasold (after Ursus by Jonathan Regier)

a sympathetic hypothesis—that fictional portrayal of what you meant, he meant, we all were hoping for. imaginary, of course, but can’t we pretend we’re keeping track? sorting & recycling, putting it out on the curb every Tuesday, blue-bagging it and still we feel poor. minds designed big enough to encompass whole celestial motions, thinking up words to calculate heaven, and instead you’re humming while you fix the garburator, he’s out to lunch with boss number seventeen, and i’m hunting up floor wax, trying to look distinguished. all of us more or less succeeding—isn’t that the intended purpose, the goal of this art? fiddle it around, we’re all true and false and feigned and next week the big blue truck will come down the street just the same whether we’re here or gone dispersed into its elements, the world-system contrives to function rather well without us.