anthem

They stitch the meanings together after everything is torn to ribbons. Red for blood, white for death, and that resignation to all that sunken blue. The stars scattered in orderly rows, sharpened in every sense. We love and die and strive towards purpose, in these fecund lyrics that bond us to our world. We hold fast to the certainty that all this clumsy singing can only be blessed.

Used so much all words just come apart. Your confessions of faith, my admissions of sins. A few more words sang too loud, a few more prayers for it all to go wrong. I offer up these worn down oaths, these condensations of beauty. The calamity of the mistaken meaning, the comedy of an endless river of errors. Truth the inevitable outcome taken as a virtue.

The afternoon ending in rake and broom. The slow flow of traffic, the percussion of bristles and cement. Leaf litter pushed down a sidewalk, the work doing nothing but sharpening all the edges, making distinctions my only proof. I trail away, clouds of smoke and gnats an erratic halo of poisoned grace. I settle into the shadows, my song only evident in the little miracles. My anthem a branch dragged behind my absence, a nation furtive and always in decline.