Calendar
Some people, after the day
has passed, scratch on X
inside that box, as if
the past were a treasure
map and the sweet spot
for digging just missed.
Others, more hurried, employ
a slash-and-yearn policy,
their single diagonal suggesting
a ladder that showed up
too late for actual scrambling.
At the edge of known
physics, theorists like to say
days and minutes don’t exist.
But calendars do: you can mass
produce them with snapshots
of aspirations in Lisbon and Madrid.
In a pinch, in winter, they make
fine logs for the fire; in summer,
fans for shadeless expanses.
The fans burn too. Days are
like that: elastic and highly flammable.
