a kind of hollow shape

the seasons aren’t really
accurate, and anyway the sun
tilts crazy like a ballerina on
her last legs

the soil is wet and couples
everywhere are igniting, little puffs
of flame
in shopping-centre carkparks; authorities
waiting for the afternoon thunderstorm to put
them out.

where are the trains, she said.
they should have
been here an hour ago.

it isn’t
so hard to understand. they simply
weren’t needed, and went wherever
dragons and old methods of psychoanalysis
go, not to die exactly
but this place where traces
point to. the greasy marks
on the exit ramp
where Sara & Jeaninne finally
went. what we remember of how
the seasons (never) were.

—Matthew Simmons.