Holding Myself Accountable (after Alison Knowles’ ‘Identical Lunch’)

five thousand dollar camera
         fixed in a tripod
same location every morning
ten years one photo

federal regulations
prohibit hanging
banners from the monument

a woman's long thin
fingers kneading eggs
into soft yellow clay

experience points
earned for being
mean to my readers

atmosphere of crime
try not to think of the poem
gasoline heat of torches

i hope
to level up
soon please god

Alison Knowles at MoMA in 2011/Robert Caplin for The New York Times