black ribbons

Between the long strung beads of rain, the silvered chains of water falling, the night admits some small assent. Beneath the burble of the drowned gutters full of litter, the blind curbs and the choking sewers, shadows tangle unfettered by the fresh winter river. Darkness stares as dreams and weather mingle, the parsed streaks and inky fingers of this blessed absence of light. The roll of storms allows for umbrage. Mudslides and flooding, the deep thirst of the land needing to be slaked. The striving against extinction always in danger of the brutal answer of all those loosened prayers. Life is always bound and beholding to these unseen threads, working towards and against this deep oblivion.

I see her pass, her dark hair bound by a single black ribbon, her neck bared and elegant despite the chill and damp. Eyes fixed upon some distance, a deft smile held as if in honor of some small sad secret. As if the cause and result of heartbreak wandered along the spattered mirror of some typical street. As if the world wished to remind me of all that I am missing. She glides like a ghost tapping the pavement for effect, in rhythm to some song lost in the rain and the night. Her hips sway like all favor and fortune, weaving blood and soul into these blind dispensations, towing these idle thoughts in her wake.

Wait out all indulgences and denials, wait out the day to drown these dreams in the night. Cling to the small actions, the localities of treasure and intent, the thriving of that which will never need us. Celebrate the fortunes of those in luck and favor, work against the sufferings that will never reach us. Look back far enough, we all share the same birthdate, separated by billions of years and all the thousands of strategies that failed to survive and thrive. The churning, roiling complicity of life, rapt particulates clinging and moving matter, adrift amid these wheels of stars and timeless stretches of the void. The satin persuasion of a length of ribbon, the silken promise of hair waiting to be unbound. Aliens and strangers, isolated and bound together. Keeping warm, worming through these habits of climate and the night.