Jeremy Radin

It's been determined that denial is applied
not to the Moment itself, but to the power

of the Moment—i.e. shrugging a mountain
as a shawl off the shoulders & letting it fall

like feathers to the floor. Take, for instance

a young man seated on the couch, quaffing
wine & lamenting not leaving the waitress

his number as his father's new ghost hurls
itself against his skull. Going about regular

routines: marinating the chicken, reading

the novel, taking out the trash, no eye cast
toward the cloud of black anvils hovering

over his head. His heartbeat like a fraying
rope. He buys new bedsheets—sea foam

green, so as to drown at least in loveliness,

a pastel coffin piloted into the deep, & yet
see him rise in the morning, shake the salt

from his beard, his eyes, off his numbing
limbs—is today the day? He'll shuffle into

the kitchen, read the chicken, & marinate

the novel, lay—now through—on the dark
wood floor, gathering the slats like a blanket

around & around him—artery in which he is
the occlusion, the heart of negation erupting

like a bomb in a house made of water.