Our secret shame, isn’t it
of us?—Utopia,
to better make the world.
To make, better: a world,
still frames, a sheet of ice,
a thready fire burning scraps
and gas poured on it,
a testimonial, a city’s statues,
a foreign tongue. None of it
weighty as we think, prone
to fall away. What’s left?
Want of imaginary things
coded into landscapes, conglomerations;
categories that comprise, obtain.
A place, person. A list.
The names of things, like imagined cities.
Spaces to step out of
and into, felt like a pain.
How could I doubt them? Knowing
has nothing to do with it. Abstraction,
careful crafted, chanted
down the ages. An elephant’s foot,
the network, steam cloud, imaginary New York, Utopia
of waiters. What we make,
the world, better.
