MORNING PROVISIONAL

It might collapse at any moment, the room;
might come apart at the seams. Drifts in mist

in rain; wind shook everything, almost shook
everything loose. A man on the radio says

vulnerability assessment says gap analysis.
Or he calls: years-away voice. Room tilting

precarious above the street. Carry on
at late morning coffee, hover over the paper,

tabled. Already it’s clear how every story
ends. Trees knock branches to glass; wasps

let themselves in without asking. And letters
pile by the door in luminous envelopes.

There is fracture and there is repair. Call or
letter; riddle or time machine. Weeks of storm

and uncertainty and now splintering light
delivered through clouds. A bell, a word,

the hinge in the narrative. Where pieces
came together. The phone might be

an instrument of desire or a means of
containment; a letter might be a compass.

When it turns back on itself like this, the sky
says look away; pretend the end is not upon you.