How often do you slip letters across thread and

weave them between your teeth? Sometimes I skip

post-dinner because that’s when the graphite snaps from

my tongue and I swallow lead instead– then I’m

polluted till the window-lamps contouring the court tremble dark, till

streetlamps perch sentinel. That’s

when I clip eight inches of frayed string,

garnish it with twenty-six symbols in permutations

approaching infinity, though approaching is never

        sufficient because I’m always searching,

        still, just before the sentinels swap again, before east and west

        swap again and still

I’m searching

for another combination of symbols

because approaching infinity leaves only a finite

quantity for expression.

And I can’t ever complete construction, so the symbols

I’ve arranged into patterns tumble from thread as it strangles

enamel and maybe that’s

why they don’t believe I clean between my incisors.