I’ve woken up long ago. The plane scurries silently overhead, is full of people, of consequence. It is gone in 3 seconds. Passed through the window shade into nowhere. In France and Germany purple contains more red and less blue. A cat of ash I watch intently. As he, too, in silence, trots into the backyard. Does he live in the shed? What do I know? He disperses behind the shed, out of nothing. Is this music too loud? I’m done with questions, it is fine. I used to wonder why John Ashbery bothers with collage, but it’s no longer a concern of mine. I’m older now and I understand. A man is not only a beautyberry or only a painter or only a gondola. He can live anywhere at any time and my body is the mug of coffee that carries me here. If I obscure this mess, watch what it becomes! A pile of ciphers. (A muscular word that I need to be reminded of occasionally. One should be grateful when one is reminded of that word: Cipher. Thank the man and the place who reminds one of it: Matt Taibbi, last night, at the party.) A pile of ciphers like a lover’s alarm clock and reportage, hot and sweet. A pillow for sleeping then. Watch how the ciphers redden and collapse into one another as the temperature rises. The air desaturates. Lungs no longer new, suddenly, nude. I suppose I am a journalist first, and recoil. My socks do not match. Your socks, meanwhile, in mid-flight. Everything purple is discarded on the bedroom floor, gathering little flakes of us. My eyes today are gray, thank you for asking.