stray

dust particles make it hard to make it out
the lopsided memories the
leopards recycle paradise
the recall is a recital of lost years and we -
paralyzed by self-projected miracles &
tricky distances -
recline mockingly suave, coolly surveying these disguises

in the ten eyeblinks when we are
absentmindedly rearranging
personal elements like a
favorite writing desk or a
bingo table or a
love letter we find
excuses to undo the foundations and
cruelly deconstruct
the fossils of old flames until we are
writing
new
stories and encounters as if
to do so was akin to being an organized person as if
to not do so was akin to being an organized person and

far past the horizon on chilly bored evenings the strays collect with
thumbs sticking out of pockets
murmuring like spent machines maybe
walking their dog or an old bad habit
bumping into their equals like tokens on a board
aging and bearing pained expressions and
scuttling their ambitions into the moonlit grass

i remember pages
warm from multiple reads
and pink-night sky and streetlights and
bagels at 3 in the morning and
freezing early hours and the infinite tongue of a life endlessly
extending almost
boring in its length and
looking for engravings or mottled signatures anywhere to mark my
passing by the moored ghosts of others and finding microscopic
traces that could have as easily been mirages or even my
own stimulated handprints and in their presence feeling
some stupid fulfillment or amusement

it moves so timidly slowly now and yet strangely brutally
emotionally beautifully and the insecurities die so frequently in the
next daylight the ones that were felt so deeply they defined every
motion now cringe into pockets of understanding like
crickets under leaves and
populate who i find myself as and with
what hands and poisons i
draw the
rest
to
view