You cannot impeach your own verdict.Practice restraint,like—I am, merely, psychotic. (Or,trapped at least the sensation.)The clouds slide like doorsabove the lacquer river;there goes the moon. There,the windows snapping pictures,purple red, of the lightning.If “sensuous” is the first time it happens(to you) then “sensual” isevery time thereafter. Either menacein the abstract or the menace itself.The locomotive could speed, lamp lamp,town of Tempo True, corrugate,town of Inky Sky, lamp lamp.The Lower Forty Eightcannot be seen by horoscopes,the bandwidth of our dark energy,the stillbirth of our clocks.“Local” defers to jurisdiction, “local”always defers. Electric bulb is matter and ifelectric bulb were not nearly frightbut arrest—show interest,show interest, I show interest you.A blossom-late automaticthat will renew.____Dan Gutstein is the author of non/fiction (stories, Edge Books, 2010) and Bloodcoal & Honey (poems, Washington Writers’ Publishing House, 2011). He directs the Writing Studio and Learning Resource Center at Maryland Institute College of Art, and teaches creative writing at the Writer’s Center, in Bethesda, Md., and at George Washington University. In past lives, he has worked as an international economist, theatre arts educator, editor-in-chief, tae kwon do instructor, and farm hand.