star spell

Watching the light change on the tail of this strange strewn afternoon, the glimmer glimpse of the spark and shine of caught right leaf or tumbled insect wing turning into momentary wishing stars right there in the blue gray day. I look to the west where my wishes hole up, the tumbled color of coming rain seeping from the horizon. I turn to words, I turn to wishes, remembered kisses with my hand placed just so. The singsong of that old star spell spent on chitinous wings or a stray ray of sun. Even so, the world is mostly wished shaped, at least when it comes to the human ones. The ruinous bones of misspent wishes the shape of this shambling life. 

How quickly they spin the stories. How readily they spin an ear. Head for the hurt and cross your fingers against the blame. The world is a long walk when grimy vindictive liars call out most of the directions and arrest anyone who make a map. When all you own is your voice and what you borrow from tomorrow, filling your pockets making graves by lying might not be the wisest of ways. Wishes used to make others want, the shape of need denied.

I carry an older torch, a duty to bear the flame, and an assortment of ancient claims and preexisting conditions. A glint of gelt, a change of states, the insipid evermores. I’m the usual suspects on a tear, all hands and teeth. The way it shines when you say it. The doors all blown open at once, and the way it carries through. A dusty streak of sunlight on bare shoulders strewn with hair, a flash of oath and feeling. The dream of another afternoon a wasteland made each day, a breath held just before a candle is blown out.