him, a tiny
catastrophe,
speeding into the void coy.
easily disposable. the paper
head can only fold
so many times.
yet mind
the liminal and
you too
can heal.
— yes,
even you.
this
thought
came
with a routine flat gaze
through smudge on the window
on a train. it arose
crouching
orthogonal, from
one space where
felt helicals hold
the pause of holy.
he knows
this place
not well.
he feels
inadequate
to the task.
like it’s too late.
like he is an idiot.
like his time is up.
each of
his small rooms
that make him
him is
coated with a
light film of whetted necrosis,
the sharp dust, to come.
but at the epicenter
of each sits
an old woman with
braided hair blacksilverwhite down
to her knees, speaking
looping words which, upon
hitting stolid air of
pyramidal hymn, manifest
sound images in three directions:
of those horrors to come
that, if not
taken at a glance,
annihilate;
of wobbly peace
and tranquil eddy
‘round-the-rock
that heal, all in all;
of fretted final causes
where arrow of our earth-shot
finally ends up. and
upon her forhead
writ in the ledger
of four parallel
wrinkles were:
tremulous
is the inside,
keep a rattle
close by, seeker