The insurance adjustor never calls back.

The man in the rainbow sweater says
            I could tell you all the secrets of life.
Step into my office.

The river thrashed violently, awash in melted snow.

I was standing there making tea and I heard it,
            but I was thinking about a package
                        I’d ordered that hadn’t come.

In another room, a man hung plastic sheeting
            from the ceiling with small wires
                        to suggest a wave.

All the purple in the world curled into a spiral
            the size of my palm.
But a bird wouldn’t cluster like that, obviously,
            though its call drives insects under dirt.

What’s worse we strung together,
            stinking and synchronized.
Having already turned to diamonds, I could never
            turn to quartz.

I’m good at turning phrases, or pages.
I’m good at kitchen physics, and nothing like
            a hairless dolphin,
                        only sort of like ten ducks in a river,
            brushing ice-chunks with their webbed feet.

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