“Sometimes I feel very sad.” –Brian Wilson
Dust
is skin pulled
off, moved
from me
to the worn
floor of my room.
The room’s
dusty
floor wears
what is pulled
from me.
Across it, dust moves
when I move.
The room
contracts. I
am cloth and dust.
I pull
myself up, worn
from worn
out moves.
Dust pulls
in the room’s
corners. Dust
deserts me.
But I
wear
patience. Like dust,
I move
through my room.
I pull
an arm through a shirt, pull
myself
through my room—
it wears
me too. It moves
its dusted
tongue, pulls off worn
skin while I move
through my room’s dust.
Brian Clifton has work in: Pleiades, Guernica, Cincinnati Review, Salt Hill, Colorado Review, The Journal, Beloit Poetry Journal, and other magazines. They are an avid record collector and curator of curiosities.