Credo

I believe in the infinite line,
the straight line between points
and the equality of all right angles.
Amen.

I believe also
in narrowness and excellence.
In the importance of measurements.
I like to keep things
inside things. I like to keep
adequate records.
I like to gazette.

Of course I prefer nouns to verbs
the label affixed, unmoved.
I like to draw chalk-lines.

I believe in making lists.
In quartz clocks,
calendars, reminder calls, alarms.
I like the hours 9am and 5pm,
and taking to the weekend shapelessness with these:
hedge-clippers, edge-trimmers,
a lawn-mower on the lowest notch,
secateurs.

I like collecting things
and looking up their names in books.
I like Killing Jars.

Always I will prefer the unblemished butterfly
pinned to a mounting-board
in the hard cone of a 60-watt desk-lamp

to the tattered joy
circling in a column of a dusty sunlight
somewhere.