Kevin Walter

Return State

My genetic disposition to coiled hair lives within cerebral fluid, leaking down the column. Springtime early comes to the hemisphere. Don’t you hate that sensation where the seasons change too quickly? A word for that exists in some cavernous location or tongue. Surgeons beg metallurgists for new scalpels. Regularly. It’s best to stop reading ten days prior to any procedure, as facts may fall to the floor below. In the twentieth century—respectable germophobe. Now it’s night terrors, noxious miasma, new parlor. Outside the hotel parking garage, the rental cars rise from the earth. Under the gray statues of angels.

Pillars

The arch’s hollow at the apex. Moon shoes before the fountain. No personal artifacts in public, please. Such mist. A troupe of fiancées serenades you in the center sphere. That time of year. Here’s how it works: you smile past your lips. Not to be confused with grimace. You’ve got the sniffles. You get up and are mostly gone. This is where I live now—I’ve modeled the ceiling after an oyster. If you remember what we look like inside. Here’s how it works: love (the music) versus love (the idea). You let your hair down. You wheel sideways away.