There are mysteries—why a duck's quack

doesn't echo anywhere

and: Does God exist?—which

will remain always as mysteries. So

the same with certain abstracts

aligned with sensory life: the tactile,

for example, of an iron bar

to the forehead. Murder

is abstract, an iron bar to the skull

is not. Oh lost

and from the wind not a signle peep of grief!

One day you're walking down the street

and a man with a machete-shaped shared

of glass (its hilt

wrapped in a bloody towel) walks towards you,

purposefully, on a mission.

Do you stop to discuss hermeneutics with him?

Do you engage him in a discussion about Derrida?

Do you worry that Derrida might be the cause of his rage?

Every day is like this,

is a metaphor or a simile: like opening a can

of alphabet soup

and seeing nothing but Xs, no, look

closer: little noodle 

swastikas.