Anything But the Case

Do me my elegy now, or I'll scrawl the thing

I scrawl as you're going or screw in a ball when you're gone,

Or you and I write unaware in each other's tongue

That you or I ever set foot . . . Or do what our son

And/or little daughter got done: got our brilliant names

Pricily grooved in marble by one skilled

In times of loss; dream iridescent dreams

It's that first Saturday. Let this hour be filled

With anything but the case, so that Time the clerk

Goes panting in horror from gremlin to error to glitch

And his screen is stripes and he knows he saved his work

In one of a billion files but fuck knows which,

And he lets us alone or, at worst, as we tiptoe by,

Feels we're familiar, can't for the world say why.