Screen Dump 534
If on a winter's night a traveler
enters an empty room
and sits on the floor to read a book
about a reader reading a book
about a reader . . .
You wake to find yourself
peering through the befogged glass windows
of an old train
steaming across a snowy landscape . . .
Over and over . . . and over . . . my boys . . .
Navigating a snowstorm
in a rusted-out hulk of a car
whose ragtop sleeps with the fishes
is the beginning of a short story
about you . . . and not you . . .
You are about to empty
your deleted items folder . . .
You are about to knock on the door
of a no-longer empty room . . .
A reader reading about a reader
looks up . . . over his bifocals . . .
His bifocals reflect images
which tell of
lost time and lost loves . . .
A round-robin reunites players
with their parts . . .
The immensity of missing pieces
is enough to enjamb the patterns on a chessboard . . .
The white player is checked . . .
The remainder numbs . . .
You bump it up to the next level . . .
There are seven . . .
You are fed a lie . . . and enter a funhouse
with walls of mirrors . . .
Your crinoline costume speaks in tongues . . .
A tale of two . . .
going up . . . going down . . . going . . . going . . .
back to the back to the back to the . . .
In the distance . . . distortion . . .
If not for distortion, then? . . .
Trying to salvage the moment
or the memory of a moment
or the moment of a memory . . .
you return to . . . an empty room . . .
If on a winter's night a traveler . . .