mumble moon

It gets complicated once the symbols settle. It gets hard when the knowing goes dark. We grasp at the afterburn of words that don’t fit, riding the tide of language until we can come to grips with how much we missed. We’re the recognition of the place and the passing. We’re the moment the meat is torn from the bone. The feeling first, from fact to figuring, from frying pan to fire. There’s no telling what we end up with once the words arrive. That’s why we talk these circles, every sentence diagrammed. That’s why we spill into instance once the story goes. The cycle of appetite and sacrifice.

A bird shadow manifests upon four shrubs, the long light falling off the roof, the wind doing stretches. I lean low, breathing in emeritus, ache and smoke and gravity where it hurts. Dahomey Dance loping off the porch, the animals all a drowse as the sun goes west. I burn through the words in staggered reels and microdoses, clinging to the fabric and the flesh, spitting on the cement and smelling the dirt. The sidewalks stretch out past the boundaries, treetops staggering through yards and hills, the landscape scraped by industries fading into shapes and munitions. The busywork and check marks of the observable realms. 

Love becomes the wilderness, the bird loosed from its cage. Everyone has their fingers crossed. Everyone has their hands full. Ex and oh it. Seal it with wax, seal it with an emoji, the kiss in counted thought. The world goes on and on. People keep saying nothing, they say it all the time. I guess this is my people part, on the porch while the sky grows dark. This is me at the wheel, mumbling at the moon.