Parallelogram

A wooden pallet
has been tide-tossed here and there on the beach
for a couple of weeks now
slowly disintegrating
splintering
adorned with seaweed
it imposes a geometry on the landscape
like the soccer ball, the ping pong ball, the notebooks, the dented beer cartons

Well

There is geometry everywhere: fractals and complex curves
waves and solids and the arcs of bird wings

We humans are so damn simple
I am simple
I pick out of this landscape those points of purity that my kind likes to generate
the white boats on the water
the airplane darts thrown through clouds
the monotonous drone of engine, leaf blower, railroad car

But as I approach the foam of my mortal end
the algal decay
the splintering of my wood
I have so much to learn about irregularity
so much of regularity to release

While the palette’s parallel slats may be
the last part of its form to collapse
they will collapse, and so will all my thinking