If only I had heard the words themselves
expelled unmistakably in blades from
a swirling voice, prismatic in black,
and simply inescapable permanence
through me, saying
you are condemned, I would have nodded, nodded
Unmistakable, too, though, is my thought
and it lashes simply through me
more than a burden on a via dolorosa
asking what sound the ground would make,
were my shoulder to dip, it to fall, were I, in bareness,
to run towards a break in the confluence
My shoulder throbs critically certain moments,
possibly, the way water when it mantles
under itself, when its skin just about
feels itself out
Though solitude, it could be made of wood
to splint or splinter and, further, throbbing is just
blood, in as would be out, so quickly do my
bones straighten, wait for swirls to slow,
silence to recede back towards
sussurating laodicean voices, again, speaking
only to me, too too clearly a calloused truth,
and for the confluence to nod, nod then close the break.
