How can you expect anyone

 

How can you expect anyone

to respect you if you don’t

have a couch? Most of the

respected people in the world

have couches — shrinks, talk

show hosts, regular people —

and the ones who don’t have

Ottoman empires, stuffed with

enough spice and capitalist

machinations to trick even

the most proudly minimalist

of decorators — How

 

can you expect to nurture

and grow a cult in your apartment

if you don’t have a general idea

of where each type of friend

will sit, where the naked one

will pose, where all the laughter

will gather and be drunk, where the

lovers will love to be together

in that moment and then maybe

never meet again — How

 

if you don’t have a naturally

occurring shape to your layout,

can you ride into the remnants

of your day like a trustworth and

gentlemanly wave, and never

be shocked at the constellation

of galaxies the strange place

of the fridge, the way each room

has its own name even if they’re

just one room — How

 

if you move your plants to a new apartment

do they feel about all this

moving, have their assonance and

dissonance been measured has anyone

been still enough to do so? How

when you measure the shape of all those

breaths you never even noticed you

were taking, will you notice your next