Object Lesson

That a memory,

caught and mounted

for permanent display,

is not much

like anything that happens

can’t be surprising.

But where does that leave us?

Night at the Museum,

the set pieces

in their comic

ignorance of one another

take the stage.

In this series,

he tosses her

on the bed

like laundry

as she struggles

irrelevantly

against the stickiness

of tape

and it’s just this:

the blind persistence

of her struggle

and his (feigned?)

indifference,

the way each proceeds,

blinkered and mechanical,

into whatever

this recreates