It settles in like smoke in the locked room mystery, the inkling through the keyhole, the spillage from the barrel. It fills in like paint in a tumbler, the water diffuse to the hues. Clues of clouds and stubborn occlusions, the cowl of circulation caught about the dispensations of flesh, rimshots from every chamber of the diaspora of breath. I shift in my seat, I ache at my joints, I turn the words to works. I murmur dull abjurations and wicked blasphemies, the rictus of the elder postures, the slow drawing down of storms. Limping through the rituals, loosing the aspect and the iteration. A bitter taste speaking for my mouth.
Comes a sputter, comes a spark, comes the fireworks owed to the fuse. The night works out its payment plan. Say it out loud, offer flesh for consequence, put yourself before the plow of the prayer. Pick the chords and sing along. The crack of breath, the tomb of bone. The sunken the song the stone. The heat of the ichor, the depth of the cup. The flutter of wings bright with gossip. The weight bending the blossom down once it went the way it was heard.
They’ll catch it with the quotes around it. They’ll get it in a cartoon bubble. The sayer and the say it so. Words to whet your want against, words to feed your whims. The whether there’s a there, the sincerity of the hook, the time you table and the time it took. We give the ghost the most we can manage, we give our heart to our host, the deadbolt and the door hinge. The crown, the thorns, the whole throne deal. The bend about the breath unburdened, the steady rake of worship, the cast of snake and stone. Speak it as the words incur. Say it as you must.
