A: Who is in Charge of this Awkward Dance
of Broken Particular(s)? Admittedly, I am
Not Skilled at Following Leads, Reading
Directions. I Bore Easily, the Mind Wan-
ders with the Lost Violin off the Page
the Musical Score set on Fire. Absence
Distracts. Not Skilled at Waiting for What
Really? What do you have to Say for your-
self @this Juncture of Jumpy Birds?
Z: [No Answer].
A: Emptiness Echoes. I Throw flesh-color Rocks
At the Abyss. Too Tired too Stymied
to Know How Else to Fill Hours that Gather Dread.
What Matter – what Matters Here?
Silence Echoes.
A: Such Bitter Cold, the Cage of Bones Rattling at the Fire where I have Destroyed all Letters but Yours: Z. Somewhere you Hold me in Blank Sleep, for my Dreams have Nowhere to Settle. Empty Sheets (my bed my paper), Sheets of Ice too Thin to Hold, the Fish underneath watching us. You, the Keeper of my Dark Fractions, Broken Poetry & Music that Hurts sometimes, You Keep me this Bitter Winter, but I am Afraid of what We Have Become.
Z: What We Have Become. The Last Word.
Working working sleeping dreaming leaving
Dreaming sleeping working working leaving
Not sleeping not working breathing brushing
The horses, the horsehair brushes, the hair from
Your tired stone eyes. Tracing pushing out
their Worry Lines with calloused fingers love.
The ducks have Flown from my Hands love.
Didn’t They Find You?