I met my joy on a highway overpass. Its flame was beating the steel rail into a lamp. I knew it was my joy how a moth knows it’s night. Some people understand their joy is a blinding thing, a hat to hide the blood below. I have no memory of my own, but on a boat one day I fell asleep and it sounded like the creaking ice, and across it a single hungry bear searched desperately in its own mouth for food. It couldn’t tell its bear flesh from any other flesh, and its pawlessness was like the brightest flag waving its hot surrender to the speechless sun.

The mayor of a small town sweeps finches in piles before the street cleaner. He is an infamous whistler. No one's voted in years but each election the applause is big as a cattle ranch. Inside of a body sits a sound that frames out tiny windows but what makes a view constituent hinges on whether the soaking wet posters are stripped off the telephone poles. It's spring. Daffodils spill from the townsmens' canvas dresses, the air a'glue with uncut keys. After hours and hours in line the waiting itself becomes the spectacle.