The Difference Between Toggle Bolts & Molly Screws
It's like the atlantic around here—jittery &
Full of waves, a desperate need for a horizontal
& vertical juxtaposition, a corner, a vantage point
A start. And if that weren't enough, this device
I found to fasten, without a clear understanding
Of what in the hell needs fastening. Except,
I do this: press gently through your center
Nestling, mixing into your microcosmic control,
Until its wings finally cross the cusp, detach,
Unfold again on the opposite side, drawing me
As close to you as relative density might allow,
Clinging from the rear of your ribcage
And imprinting according to this grid:
Every minus to crease a plus, every plus
To upend a many a minus. There's a message
Nestled in between us like a traffic signal
Composed of half a dozen buttons & a rook:
"Declining to hear the city's solving tools,
They, in a methodical approach to the construction
Of peculiar fields & frames, dusting full force, yield
Two outcomes, Phoenix on the left, trajectory
From concept to completion on the other,
Redirected to circles, one in my very backyard,
The other spread along every sort of continent."
The process of the phonologically sequenced paper,
Or your physical form, a thirdness, where order
The first, trace to follow up your spine & amidst
Your hair an intended & immediate kiss
Second & nonrepresentative because
The moment this is, it is, and then one more
* * *
Bruce Covey is the author of Glass Is Really a Liquid (No Tell Books, 2010) and Elapsing Speedway Organism (No Tell Books, 2006). No Tell Motel first published this poem in September 2007. Bruce wrote, "I believe these poems are reaching, attempting to celebrate the mysterious & magnificent something that's always beyond one's extended & stretching fingers. The space between what's "true" & what might have been. . . "The Different Between Toggle Bolts and Molly Screws" came from a challenge to write a poem centered around a piece of hardware."
