Chelsea Episode

My daimon accompanied me

to the Gallery Contempo—

tug & trireme, exotic flora

of blown glass displayed.   

Slump and fuse, slump

and fuse—the best technique

for blowing sand into art.

If pressed, Mephista,

I’ll tell you—as taxis

progressed, as prisms cross-

pollenated—I was exquisite

liquid then a hard crush

under your heel. You

were plotting a heist

until a crystal thorn

nicked your thumb.

The dear sculptor G.

asked for our review

with the word “chrysanthemum”

struck out. Like a polygraph,

he said, the pencil veered

on an invisible grid. Axis of Conflict.

Axis of Crisis. Did you hear

the final unravelling of pistil

and stamen as night fell?

Maybe there was no crime–

Denouement. Maybe

the crime is we.