It’s the same house, same rugs, same wallpaper, and bedroom repeating;
same dresser; same rocker. Same window and frame, repeating.
Same birds at the pane, same pots and pans, and—on the alarm clock,
the wall clock, the phone clock—the same time, repeating
each hour’s increment in a lived life. But, This is no life, each day like
before and to come, repeating.
The furniture set in a known pattern. The rugs there, like always, inking
the blueprint of home, repeating
jewel tones on the floor, but what was once north–south now seems to lie
east–west—who moved the rugs?—in sum, repeating
the familiar, but sideways. Your inner axis has shifted, the landmarks
somehow changed but the same, you repeating
Why do they keep moving the rugs? The desk, the chair, your keys?
Home its own balm, repeating
the familiar, but neither keys nor your purse can be found—I know
I just had them—repeating
the questions yields the same, that is, no real answers. Your sense of taste
gone, like eating chum, repeating
the same million small motions: fork to plate then mouth, then back down,
always the same, repeating
the flavor of cardboard. You used to love to cook, that joyous jazz variation-
on-a-theme now a repeating
like pages of musical staffs, xeroxed blank with no notes. Lately, you refuse
to eat anything at all. In a poem, repeating
lines compose a refrain and, echoed again and again, the sum of refrains
is a song. But there is also empty repeating:
zero plus zero plus zero still zero, a void. No accretion, no growth, no life,
no thrum. Then again, birds—some, repeating
one clear note, are said to singing without tune—and, the same set of sounds
from a beaten drum, repeating
means nothing and everything at the same time. The gene runs in families
and can be followed like breadcrumbs, repeating
the precise map for getting lost, down through generations. She took the same
route to work on the town tram, a repeating
my sister relied on. We rely on a plum to taste purple when our teeth break
its skin. Some numbers go on ad infinitum, repeating…
