all my past
      imposes on my breath today

i enter a grand mosaic public building
        and on goes my medical face mask
i join the back of the queue with my documents in one hand
            and my numbered butcher ticket
                          in the other
i admire the mosaics
               a jarring tide of art against the bureaucratic purpose
                     of these rooms
gauzed in with own product exhaust
       all my past  is attending    
exhumed
  patted  into my breath
    baiting remembrance with unsubtle notes
for example :
   integrated spittings of 'drum' tobacco (i quit a decade ago)
horning catches of cologne every boy used as a teen
seasonal scents  unweaned from deep in my system
(some reigned in from the different countries
                                                    i lived in or visited)
then i am frisked back to infancy   with breast milk and rusks
it's all there    a basking flippancy
all there in musk about my face
  one fragrance after another

it's an honest relief
     to host an alternative to my 'old man' breath
           but odd and concerning
something of the brain ?

i read the poems
(perhaps not poems)
maybe, perhaps?

they are crying their hearts out
reaching

for that feeling
innate
and pristine

a howl for love

sadness

faith and joy

those tortured *******
their words trumpet,

"I am here!"

all too human
and i will not read you
anymore
this nascent melody
of us tortured souls.

Or trap
for tourists

but not travelers
and searchers

who'd find gold
and platinum

in the two headed
yak

or snake
with a spooned tongue

and they would
bank on it

Every flaw leads to perfection once it overcomes itself when it can no longer support itself.

Reaching this bend in the road and
looking back, it's hard to see where
I've been or going. With no hesitation
felt, continuing on is all that matters
and all that remains.

Our journeys never really end, even
death is but another bend in the road.