The clock is dressed in drag, I mean it wears
space instead of its own proper aspect
but if it wore time, would it disappear
isn’t visibility an effect

of transvestism, that shield pastime whose
crosscasual aim unmasks the eye: must you
assume the costume of the other to
be here, to present the sense with an ess. . .

Narcissus saw his guise decked out all ruse,
but if there were none, what would our true clothes
consist of, our rig rags, our regalia–

Whose dapper element dons us: Einstein’s
continuum–or Flaubert’s condence
that, come the same, the Bovary c’est Moi?

Analysis, meaning and summary of Bill Knott's poem Tempestrousseau

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