sitting out in a cabin in the woods, with a pile of old porn magazines, all damp and heavy, sitting there listening to the radio, and there’s nothing outside the cabin, just wide open fields fading into more wide open fields, the buzzard’s cry over the treetops at night, i sit on a bare chair listening to the static, to stations that stopped broadcasting long ago, there’s nothing there. in this room, an open can of herring on the kitchen table and a stack of old, heavy magazines left here generations ago, a bed in the corner, a small stove and some logs next to it, the varicose-dark sky bleeding over the treeline at night, the nightly anesthesia and the dreamless sleep, vodka and wagner on the radio, walking naked down to the pond a hundred meters below the cabin, swimming and disappearing into the dark water, hearing my thoughts echo across the endless fields, it’s kind of pleasant but also kind of indifferent, i don’t want to read poetry or do anything else, i like swimming in the lake and reading my magazines, i hear nothing at night, there are no dogs anywhere nearby, i think about the women i was with about fifty years ago, i lie naked in bed under the heavy blanket, the tap in the kitchen dripping all night, i drink vodka in the evenings and listen to the dead radio stations, there’s nothing here, you have to believe me when i say there’s nothing here.