older
than itself
like
how cobwebs give age
to
what they hang over
thin evidence of the disappeared;
beaches mistaken for deserts
stones
and statues dusted
into
bland oneness
***
we
are much the same as
all
that has crumbled
turning
ourselves barren
in
the face of time
creating
sediment out of
mountains
crushing
pop-songs
and parade confetti
evenly
sifting them
into
forgetfulness
becoming
the post-apocalyptic
wanderer
of our own skin
growing
these dunes
without
edges
***
nothing can feed on sand
but
my... we try.
What your lover means seems transparent:
You're a kind of death's head
that ought to have the sense
to hide itself from sight.
But you look in the mirror and the mirror says:
"Wayward, trusting amiable flesh, flesh
lending itself to other flesh,
how can you help but be seduced by another's body?"
-Tom Sleigh
Gram of mania, animated pepper,
shadow-monger dressed in panic,
monitor of ghostly footfalls,
it concentrates in its essential tic
the frog leg dropped into oil
and the human shock at the verge.
If it would stop and let me look,
I might imagine the tropic
where it hangs in a hammock
between two popsicle sticks
admiring the iguana’s stealth,
but it does not stop. Hawk-
dodger, crow-pretzel, gallows’
twitch. Spider-shark. Porter
of readiness, miller of the
steady shudder, peripatetic
rectitude, run by the power
of the sunlit rock, it fortifies
Darwin and the idea of being late
and the missed appointment.
With its blue tail, it reminds us:
it will go on. It will not stop.
-Rodney Jones
