Garden Folly

We were beating your carpet

in the backyard with a plastic broom

Dust mites dispersing in clouds

Like the steam from my tea made visible

Its particles rising to the ether

All things suited to their places:

Vapor belongs to the heavens

Water to the earth     In this way

Our bodies belong to each other

In the bathtub     In the bed

You were a mouse in the factory

Manufacturing a series of measuring devices

Like the gas valves outside our Uno Prii

A spring inside the meter stops it overheating

And other mechanisms I couldn’t comprehend

My framework of thought medieval

We were seated on the grass        On the greenery

in a secret courtyard of standing water

Forking cubes of melon into our mouths

You rolled your eyes when I asked about deliberate mistakes

The factories you stood to inherit:

The possibilities of bark-based polyurethane

Our futures slotted together like spoons

On the balcony         On the chesterfield

We placed the carpet beneath your sister’s table

and lay us in its garden