What’s the statute of limitations
        on my obligations
                as a son
        on my victimhood as a
                semi-orphan
        on my blamefulness as a
                father
When does it end—these yet-to-be-seen effects of the mundane
        I make now?
When do I not carry them
        the strings
        of the yarn map tracing
my endless encounters and tacking
        not into cork but
        into my soul stretched pulled
in four dimensions.
Length times width times depth times time. I coexist
         in every manifestation of
myself simultaneously.
        All time all me, all tacked,
        All pulled, all stretched by
more hands than my own.  Vibrating
        into my marrow reminding
of the inescapability of the
        contracts I didn’t sign.  Most of them.

Each day the threads move.
They swirl and choke or puncture
        taut and pull. pull. pull
        me back, back to them.
        To early morning and late nights
        every day
        That old house of repressed
memories and façade bonds
        of newspaper-wrapped electric
circuits waiting for the
spark
        to finally incense the
        old aged kindling of other
        string maps of
        other pasts of
        more and more disappointment.

My heart is a prism. a rock.
        set in the stone of my
chest compressed
by pressure into endlessly
        juxtaposed edges of glass.
        An edge: a time a place a person a me. Surrounded
        onyx black
but yet
        Reflecting.  It’s deep
        yes
        but shine deep enough
        yes, go
        and it will reflect
        go on, go on
        fluoresce
        yes yes yes go
        myriad colors of spectrums
                of me
torn out of the mine of
my own construction of
        the muscle memories of
        the past pains of
        the unceasing variations of
the crude black **** I’ve
made before.

        How long
                        will I be responsible for
                                                     her?
For you?
Was I ever?
Am I at all?