the universe watches with her
mischievous eyes
as silence stretches on
between me and the mechanical city
from up here, in winds’ embrace
the cars are decades away,
and lights only a vivid memory
straining the back of my skull
the universe, too, breathes
I hear her now
hear the vacancy stir
in her bones
one— and the archers running
down my throat
two, like the lambs slaughtered
beneath them eyes
three and four and nine—
cracked toe-nails laden with mud
—ten women weeping
eleven wishes for the wilting weeds
I sense a chariot
bumping down the ribs
twelve for the wounded boy
limping up the hill
twenty— a hundred
and hundred more
inhale
I fathom the seconds kiss their hours
and hours melting into days
weeks and minutes,
years and more
all chopped and cooked
to a frothy stew
I feel it fill up her being
and vehicles with their horns
midway
halt—
an owl’s scream stopped just
beneath his beak
and sun, statued, stands
a thousand and the stilled plane
twenty and five
for them frozen flames
sixteen— and the shooting star
taped to the night
— seven prayers left unuttered
three for now, and three
for the past,
three more as all, into the unseen, falls
two shivers, shivers still
—one and a lone worm crawling
down my veins
one and the blue child up, up the swing
exhale
I swallow
as the ticks sink back into the clock
centuries dancing again
— and months
come stumbling home
millenniums and moments
back to their protests
as all the circus is born again
two for the pink boy,
one, then one more, for the yellow girl
we do not know what becomes of us
or where we stand— just
that digits and hues come rolling down
and we can only sigh—
27/03/2021