Procedures exhausted
before hands emulsify
that last grief into effective
managerial utterances.
Constant monitoring,
lines of electrodes
extending into each
lengthening present
itching every universe
with the newest ideation—
if the final context is
painless, then who will
grow up and become
a diagnostician? Sleep
presents itself as a style
of animation. The moment
is only itself as it is
being rearranged.
A nurse, here for my
vitals, brings another
cup of water, unbidden.
~
With what posture does
time enter the migraine?
The strobe is positioned
inches above your closed
eyes and no matter how
well behaved you never
deserve an open window.
Hyperventilate yourself.
What incident induced the
safety pamphlet revision?
Boredom reconfigures
the medium of light in
which you are never going
to leave this motorized
bed. If anything shimmers
housekeeping ignores it.
An overhead camera
becomes the ornament
of a disjunctive mood
you resolved years ago,
this present owed to that
offsetting “or” you still
cannot withstand. Sight
runs backwards in one
direction. Home has
always been an unworked
parameter of this room.
—
Engram Wilkinson’s work has recently appeared or is forthcoming in Figure 1, LIT, The Offing, and Anomalous. His chapbook, Postictal, is forthcoming from H_NGM_N. Born and raised in central Alabama, he lives in San Francisco where he studies law.