HOW IT HAPPENS

Stepping into snowy woods
For the first time and finding
No way to know one footprint
From another, and the sky is
Diffused, and you’re losing it.
Wood wouldn’t light, would
Only brush, snap, sway, stand.

Messing with an elevator door
Where the inner layer has lost
Its sheath, so for the first time
You see mechanism, like silver
Ulcers that at any time may
Turn into rollers, controllers
Shutting up, sending down.

Swimming in a tributary
Whose waves invite your
Strokes and at the same time
Create opaqueness that covers
The pipes, wires, sheets, mesh
Mushed like a nest that works
Like a sharp, spiderless web.