This coffee table is haunted. Anything you put on it is sucked in and disappears: books, Q-tips, cellphones, table lamps, underwear, ashtrays, reading glasses, babies.
It has created a low vacuum that exerts a pull at the ceiling. The house will fall. Then the universe. The coffee table is an agent of the big crunch.
A railway station corner. A man hunkered down.
Eyes closed. Hat on his head. Cobwebs, grime.
He hasn’t moved in seventeen years. Passed by, trod on.
In a trance, seeking nirvana, waiting long. Every easy answer lost.
The wait ends. Spiritual apotheosis. Soul trigger, leaves body.
The world wants instant karma. No one notices.
