The Vennus Virus
In an envelope
slipped into the side pocket—
flanked by the legal
pad-handler of a frontispiece leather-bound
file folder at the back of a cabinet
framed by the furniture of folding
“work” into “area” in a house in
a city, a world,
etcetera… absolute
universe—a hand,
severed from its wrist as clean-
ly as the nothing between
it and other hands, remains, “in
it” as remains of a fleeting
grasp, heavenly asteroid
inflated into an envois,
cornered stamp. In an envelope
rough salt, leftover from your
tongue, absorbs the last drops of moisture
from the cut roses enclosed. An
avocado-yellow piece
of cheap string promoted
to crinkled sash, poised
to distribute
affective
orders, holds a piece of card-
board (folded into a card)
down, if not downsized, the card
lunging forth like a wild Can-
tonese from a throat concealed
by a Mandarin mouth. Ciao,
in effect: an envelope
of flash tropes cards the occult.
Tyrone Williams teaches literature and theory at Xavier University in Cincinnati, Ohio. He is the author of three books of poetry, c.c. (Krupskaya Books, 2002), On Spec (Omnidawn Publishing, 2008), and The Hero Project of the Century (The Backwaters Press, 2009), as well as a prose eulogy published by Hooke Press in 2011. He has completed a manuscript of poetry commissioned by Atelos Books. His website is at http://home.earthlink.net/~suspend/.