He discovered that space was flat
but he preferred a surface more like
an interface–something that if turned
on its side would go straight to the bottom.

He wanted to turn his face to the sun,
he wanted gravity. Everybody else
would sit around eating and joking
all he way up to the end.

Names and other things have curves
where secrets hide or can be planted
to blow things up later. Unlike the
rolling boundaries of the things
you care about.

So you track him down.
There’s an improved experiment.
Before there was nothing there wasn’t
something. Your last refuge not to
beg the attribution.

The brute–it was all underwater but
like sadness it wasn’t an even thing–
more like a cryptic note or rather
a partial note. Acquiesce, it said.
like an overseer with a whip.

Did he say “depth” or “death”?
Another way of saying it’s not true,
probably not true that you’ll be anxious
now in any scene set on a spacecraft
with the short guy in the tight coat.

That blowback from the future is such
an absolute affliction you yourself
wonder how it is that something that’s
over isn’t the same as a surface.

The god who lives in a shack always
leans a chair up against the nearest
outside wall to sit in the sun.
Everything he says is so crafted it’s
like clothing. Each day we wait to hear
from you. Are you there?