’25 minutes on the elliptical’

My body slowed in voluntary, wilful

suspended animation / like thought / I am

waiting / on the cross-trainer

Window fly in front / you are dead / which

is a kind of waiting

Arms and legs snapping towards each

other / like rows of teeth in a great big

mouth

Do I mention the loved one / thoughts of

whom I am trying to banish? Or do I just

say that waiting for the loved one is a ruse

/ an attempt to banish myself?

Lax / pushing / lax / … / I would like / … /

to be the fly / … / pushing / amongst dust

/ lax / pushing / the heartrate / pushing /

the intensity

I have been waiting to surrender to the

higher power / any that would ask it:

witchcraft, politics / … / the CIA, yoga / to

force my body through the clunky tasks of

everyday

My legs are the strong front legs of a

horse / power no propulsion / my arms

whip about like an angry jockey /

clenching the belt / guns warm by the end

Screens blink a thousand tiny sums / skull

interfaces / a weight bearing overhead /

all-quantifying

The binary of arms and legs / like cats and

dogs / slugs and snails / your nose and

your mouth / chicken and egg / which

sickness came first / of the mind / or the

body with it?

Here I am / slow / waiting for my heartrate

to drop

I have chosen carefully / the window at an

angle / reflection facing the street /

background: hot buses waiting to move

up and down the road / people in the

sunshine going somewhere presumably /

foreground: a fly crawls across a dirty glass

What I want: the shaky last drag of a

cigarette / the head-swells / to wait too

long to release the clinging lens from the

surface of my eye / so that it might get

stuck

What I want: to be someone having an out

of body experience / in broad daylight /

on an exercise machine

Do I mention the previous visits? / time

adding up in careful slots / delaying

something / waiting / gratifying

something else / the day before / the day

before

Sleepwalking through liquid / waiting for

something that can never come / like a

held dog or baby / half in water / half in

deadly hopeful air

I let someone come over me like a fever / I

am waiting for you to pass

My phone hums against me / the hotel

falling apart opposite / buses stopped at

the red lights / I press the fan button three

times / having made myself wait / I am…

treating myself?

I bore myself at low intensity / waiting for

my skin to shed

The word elliptical / I find more pleasing

than cross-trainer / frequently I am

confused by mundane processes / I wait at

a door that is open for far too long,

believing it locked

Now as always I think of food I’ve declined

What I want: for my body to slick itself

away from me / layer by layer / whatever

is waiting to be something in there /

juices, fats, mantle / peaceably / for the air

to just take it away

I have often thought I would like to be a

puppet, taxidermy or embalmed corpse /

for a procession of friends and lovers to

move my weight through daily tasks

So that my behaviour might have some

excuse / I am waiting to transform into a

monstrous vermin / ungeheures Ungezeifer

There is shivering in / on / my head / … / I

am waiting to be overwhelmed by the

feeling / for the moment / it swells

outwards / … / claims my twitching limbs

for its purpose / … / to crumple softly to

the ground / to fall against cool glass / a

stoned fly

This is not granted / … / I turn off the

machine / … / feel suddenly burn-red and

sweat-damp / … / fall ungratefully away /

the machine beaming my numbers out to

suddenly-turned faces in the bright /

someone calling a window cleaner