The west seems impossible
Domestic country foreign
Left and right, up and down
Meet and aspect feint
As the universe turns miles fast
Beneath the laborless turn of the wrist,
A calm smile on my face belied by the whites
Of knuckles, eyes trained toward stars and dust betwixt.
I, a mote of solar stuff,
Hurtle past the known outstretched edge
Toward the center of my solar system.
It’s a challenge, a race, a pledge,
To outrun the dark recess
Too heavy for Apollo’s light,
In that impossible west—
Yes, far too massive
Far too massive
Far too massive.
Every move has reached its apex
Bourne tired on the fabric
Heavy lies its form
As I flex
Spreading over pillows, over sheets
And to the navy dour
Of home’s familiar door
Those moments shared by all,
Soft illuming like torches,
Move closer to the center
Where each affect glows like mothlight
On neighbor’s porches.
It gave me pause
For I thought nothing could escape
A blackhole
Once crossed that threshold reach.
Upon that event horizon I gave pause
And forced a humble laugh
To let what’s still
Lay besieged.
Lest it be him
Lest it be me
Looking back
Looking in
Over the veil where one as I cannot observe
Spreads sly reminders from the other end
That has inward turned:
The product will emerge rife
With absurd cosmic alchemy
Formed but missing name and birthright—
What shall we name him?
What shall we name him?
It’s clear these twisted do-overs
That one can only watch
Are responsibilities of life
O’er event horizon crossed
Despite the warnings shouted
The wishes to him I can’t observe,
To him standing, running still become
At best, vicious reforming features—
These turn to doubtful lines of reasoning
By childhood’s chimeral creatures
One can feel its phantom limb
One can hear the pseudonym
Left with little to identify:
So, what shall we name him?
What shall we name him?
Only fools, the crowd of past selves,
Headlong cross the event horizon
And follow north
The stone covered in moss
Till a once around the globe,
All upsides and down, sufficed,
Brings them to the river
They never cross twice,
Brings them to the river
They never cross twice,
Yet somehow repeats the past
As though it follows in tow
Renewed and dilated
In matter, in style forever cast.
No, this can never be, this dark flow
Looks back from impossible east
And returns to the future
With words of warning or of comfort
And all too hesitant,
The future is the memory
Of the past
Lived in the present.