He mesmerized himself with his papery skull and empty eye socket where once rolled the bluest stone
He dropped himself and the the spine rewound and tried to find its place in bedlam’s strata as the earth and sky closed in just a little
and within this capsule he placed several prized crocus bulbs and a silver eagle and a semiprecious lock of stand-in hair
As if there was someone left to fool
But then he would appear moldily in the back of a upstairs mirror mixed with portraits, paneling and all the ultraviolet ghosting throughout
or perched atop his newest project in the workshop like some demented and clingy pinocchio and the cicadas seemed to scream with glee
As if there was anyone left at all
And he took some soup on a paper plate to himself
as if the next in line could use the distraction