a gathering dust

It is all branch and wind, though then you did not know it. Then it was all the way the stars sifted down like that dream of first snow of the season. Brittle bright, and cold all the way through, the wind spoiling for a fight. That press of pavement rising through your spine, no moon waning in sight. That surety of dust waiting beneath your feet.

I pause for a sandwich. I let the memory linger, tinkering with the machinery of tooth and tongue. Try a new mustard, think about that feeling, watching the stars and sky. The house a maze of want and neglect. Dust clinging to everything I touch.

You wait there, puzzling through the ruins. That last day neither bright or bleak. Just too much like the others, the steady gaze of that machine of all tomorrows. The calendar written for you too earnest. That mirror of seasons, the epochs shining dull across the blind ice of time. There beneath the blur of heaven, your life a gathering dust.