Trinkets

Here the stone from the igneous beach in Central America. Here the walking stick culled from the hilltops where herds of dogs roamed. Here the bracelet you found on the ground whose slight scent of perfume managed to transcend space-time and causality itself. Here the crumbs of breakfast eaten as you watched the streak of light from the window separate my face into dark halves. Here the half-lune moon you offered me. Here the pallid bust of Pallas hanging at my chamber door. Here my pillows still with your occassional stray hair. Here in this room the pink dawn breaks to the east; my mind follows the hypothetical light, dulled by overcast, to the west. I will sit at my piano all day writing elegiac inventions. I will stack papers meaninglessly, make paper cranes from the covers of learned publications, spit-shine the floors, break into several simultaneous plans of action, acieving that blurry effect you sometimes get with time-lapse photography. Here there is a bubblegum wrapper with a bad joke. Here was the cup you drank from every time you were here, back when making tea for you could have been a religious experience. Here we traded barbs, and here you pierced the mirror. Here you smashed the plates, and here I became murderously down on the ground. At first you get dizzy, then you stop wanting to eat, and then the hunger redoubles; this is the course of the days. This is the cycle ticked out by uneven constellations I haven't the imagination to name. All this you left behind; get it back soon; you must do soul work.

Consider: "The universe is an intelligence test."