You get to where you were always
headed, the outcome of every
fortune from the cut of
the deck to the folds of your fists,
scar flecked hands that hold
all your futility, this rhythm
beaten into your sorry heart,
this note clutched long after
its shelf life expired. Maybe
we are meant for smaller worlds
full of prison art detail and
the bardo at the border of
these endless metaphors and
the sticks and stones that ring
our bells and reorder our
illusions the scale of change
and the rate of perception
work the throttle leaning
hard into the turn,
the unknown wandering
every road as we unwind
into words and corners. Trees and
birds and language set loose,
rock piles and scratches, lines
dragged through the mud.
Wasp nest fine and crisp as
a voice in the pitch still night.
All these wings in flight
the sky a sudden shift
in the dialogue, a lapse
only found in language and
the space between the stars.
It is this singing, slowed
up the same old grade,
this hill heavy with the flow of
love and bone,
a crumpled letter squeezed dry.
