Void and Compensation (Pug-nosed Dream)

If most things speak for themselves, can’t it be said
that really you’re doing the thinking for them?
The first step is all about obsession with exclusion,
the cold front coming in and forcing you to hunker down,
the migrants winging their way to some gold coast
with enough fat in their chests to burn down a barn.
Isn’t your own heart that way from what or whom you can’t have?
Wasn’t Sarah Vaughn singing this all along?
Polka dots and moonbeams, for sure, and that dress
that loves your body suddenly put aside, and that touch,
oh brick wall, oh tin car, oh small space
inside the crumple zone of either/or.

Michael Morse
“Void and Compensation (Pug-nosed Dream)” first appeared in Spinning Jenny.