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Inner Voice

Saliva puddles
when i remember it,
as if i had turned over
in my mouth a river stone,
smooth,
matte and wanting

of a dripping quench,
a dousing all silvery
like little aluminum
bottles with yellow
caps wet of oaky white

that once i plucked
up from the oolong
tea house of all places,
that hushed frosty pant
of a mini-fridge

except that was closed too.

And the wine market,
had the metal roll-up door
not sat rolled all the way
down,
the bell chime and false
barrels above would
have been a neat backdrop-
i am setting the scene
of my listening,
unintentionally intense-
and i don't care
for reds but i love leering
over poised shelves.

Patience, the point takes
quite a while to arrive at.
Here we finally are:

there is no point

sometimes.
This heavy stream
of consious construction
is only orbital, looping
around insignificant
inner mutter.

And the bride and groom
dancing on cream labels,
eternalized? Would have been
too easy to walk in, buy a bottle.

Behind me, a couple
murmering over the pinot
noir they should pick up
should they
go with red meat. But no,
the stupid metal
roll-up door rolled all
the way
down
so the stone keeps
on its flip, the want thickens,
but more than that, probably,
what i craved was the hum
of thoughts other than
my own, my echoing
in this concave catch-all, this
cavernous cerebral pool,
right?

That i could have heard, that
i might have known, been
known beneath the false
barrels or perpendicular to
a wall of herbal blends

whispering how they watched.
I do not care

that i was not there,
I am disinterested
in actual words. Instead i ache

that i was not involved
in a fractal happening
that evening. Simply that I was
there
to hear it would have been nice,
that i wasn't alone

even though i was.

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