No straight lines. . . .

Whoever said that there no straight lines in nature
owned a lot of clamps and ignored a lot of data.

It may be true that, cut loose
from sidewalks and painted lines,
wandering and wondering where we are,
we walk in circles, not straight lines.

I do that
but my hypothesis is that
replacing my other hip joint
will make the circles larger.

I have been trying, again, to bend thin boards into hoops
around the perimeter of a conical roof,
in order to accommodate an aluminum drip edge
that is now as straight and true as the curvature of space will allow.
I will brutalize the drip edge into a loop of local space
by snipping the horizontal plane into three-inch feathers.

That is how I compromise with cliches: halfway.

I cannot do that with the underlying facia and spacer.
I could make a thousand kerfs cut on the inner side
if I had the right saw and more patience than Job. I do not.
Even Job finally had had too much, and blew his cork.
At best, I measure my patience fully a cork
and half a bottle shorter than Job at his worst.

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