Burglary numbers

The mountain that remains when the universe is destroyed

is not big and is not small.
Big and small are

comparative categories, and to what

could the mountain that remains when the universe is destroyed
be compared?

Consciousness observes and is appeased.

The soul scrambles across the screes.
The soul,

like the square root of minus 1,

is an impossibility that has its uses.

The Dream I didn't have

I woke up on a stainless-steel autopsy table.

My chest was weighted down.

Bodily fluids stained my paper hospital gown.

My life readings were stable,

though, they were in fact, decisive.

one round number and one simple line.

A cop gave the coroner a form to sign,

but he lingered undecided over me,

murmuring to himself,

"That must have been a dream, or was it a vision"

I felt along my length his riverine incision.

Outside it was Chicago ---

city of world class museums,

handsome architecture, marvellous elevated trains---

rising from the plains

by impossibly flat lake.