You might think someone left the recliner inside
the room for a purpose, springs shot, foot-rest level
with head, the chair turned, so from the window
what you see is less what it was and more the plump
letter V in abandoned profile. A ruined thing
in a derelict place, the window has reformed
the worn-out stuffing, flexed the frame to favor
the hard starting letter in a word like vanity
or valor, a wall spray-painted in a grin. If only
I might dream my failures away, trashing them
within moments where I left pain reclining
among its decay, so indentations resettle
like time between promising positions that
invariably give when you must leave your broken
parts to get better. Behind the shattered window,
the trashed recliner is an irreparable V—one letter
leftover from the long decomposition of a word
like lover, the chair back plush in buttoned down.
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