Answering Machine

I've spent the last
week
re-reading
the lyrics
to that jim croce song

in the street,
uncomfortable prattles
of hewn mechanisms
fumble through the
neighborhood

like tarps,
covering every bed
every house covered in
aluminum siding pamphlets
detailing poems
uncovered
by pulleys
pulling tarps
off of them and over
beds

My girlfriend taking off an itchy dress

her bare feet tripping over
Bertrand Russell
as a book

an amalgam of potassium and magazines


and im convinced
the operator
is his girlfriend.