And like every year the wind
was like a homespun young man,
sweet and self-made, cheeks as soft as nothing,
or like the vast wayfaring of oxygens and
associated phlogistics on an inhuman
scale and like every year
it didn’t seem that way. It felt like we were
moving forward into something
purer, like water in a sink washed cleaner
than a tooth. And like every year
the foundation of modern states
fit roughly to the boundaries
of their ancient counterparts.
But it felt different somehow,
like new strangers where we’d drafted
pencil sketches of ourselves,
happy and wine-drunk,
forever. It was a year characterised by its
bad axe massacre, like
every year, but it felt like
this time round was it, definitive
as a map. The obscene patterning
on the dungeon walls
of the past and future felt
good, pleasantly ersatz and kitsch, that year, as if
we could imagine ourselves
outside of them. That whole year we passed
act after act, lining the sides of the road.
It was all just an act. Act your age. The representation
of the people’s representation of the people’s
