Question of Tense 

The window frame is not an allegory. It is a window frame. It needs paint. The sky fills with cheese curds and tropical fish. Did you say something about violet hands or violent hands? I didn’t hear; I was breaking the mirror.

This morning the seaside floated away. The tour guides sweat and point to the listing inn, crusted with pastel umbrellas. It had that fountain you so loved: two bronze boys barehanding fish from a brook — the younger’s face dark save for an oblong upper lip rubbed to a sheen.

Thousands of tiny paper cups surrounded the cemetery. In the center of the flag there was a hole. In the center of the hole there were trees and air. For once things appear as they are. What could it mean.