Jay Thomas

Empty Seat

If I ran, you'd be fine
I've already become no one.

20 hours, misfired. A crevice
found, then forced,
failed.

I wanted a real spiritual
machine. I wanted
the blade

to find me, the announcement
to say: " . . . left me,

my wishful thinking . . . " A week was already
inside.

Didn't time feel the faces
descending through half-
open doors,
funneled
into effigies, blocking
my execution? Idle sun, yellow

guillotine, limping

world, you're
a clog

infecting the blade. Your body's wandering
dissonance relaxed
into aesthetic
incompletion. I felt
our minutes. My own
fled.

Place is person's real execution.
" . . . take first empty seat . . . "

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