January from Nothing Matters by Jay Krause

Say you freeze those four seconds. That the sidewalk is not tilted,
that your world is not ruled by laws designed to detonate,

call it January, call me before next month if you think of it,
call from a gas station in the middle of Nevada, everyone knows

that Nevada is the best place to hide. The moon turns into a Japanese lady,
winks a tear into her careful smile, lulls and startles with each lyric:

runaways, explosives, all night diners that serve chili and pie.
Children know it, I used to know it but I lost it in a junk drawer.

There it is, the survival guide; buried under mints and rubber bands.

Say this is not the end of anything,
Say it like it is a prayer, the last ionic bond between a blue man

called to save the city and a woman who is forever trapped at a window
watching from ground control on a beautiful sunny day.

Try to say it: this is what it looks like, your mother in home videos,
her lipstick the color of fig jam, your sister blurred in the mirage

already, maybe she is fanning herself with a magazine, maybe the future
is hot on her collar at that minute, warming her, now and forever.

Seeing my brother's name on the jacket made it seem suddenly undangerous,
until of course, we found the photo where he has just emerged from the gas chamber,

and then it goes like this: say you could go back, fall out of whatever it is
you just fell into, say you could miss out in order to not miss anyone at all,

would you do it? The answer sits in an airport, smoothing her skirt,
as she has done for centuries. Stirring cool coffee against time.

And the question, governed by laws that will never belong in his world,
waits somewhere on the tarmac. All of this, in the span of four seconds.
On tilted pavement. A sunny day.

• Experimental
• Wisconsin