now and then

Another swallow of coffee and the stage is set. Another cup emptied and the deal is done. The comfort of a hard floor, the labor of a shifting sky. The words always off doing something. The words always staying out all night. All the father's pacing, all the cups nesting in the cupboards. Kitchen lights and carnal knowledge, and everything changes save the places and the names. The years swell, the decades break, and you wake up on strange sands upon a familiar shore. The day ashine all a sudden, a stone polished beneath the clear and icy waters of a lingering spring. Here again, then gone awol with every sailor ashore.

The years have mostly gone bust, each one a little quicker, offering a little less. The sad stories settle into the cozy kitchenette, crowding all our plates and knees. We make some room with cups and elbows, sip and swallow as best we can. Hospital trips and lonesome hallways. Watching our feet as the elevator comes and goes. The precious moments all aglow with their vernal luster, our mouths learning to speak the tongue of dust and tomb. We prepare ourselves for the odd departure, counting out each empty bed.

The truth is not so much I keep my own counsel as I mostly talk to myself, alone save for the mercurial retinue of cat and dog scuffing up my wake. I mutter away beneath the roiling firmament and upon uncertain paths. Stars fall down and mountains crumble. Whole cities are swallowed by the sea, to dream forever the difference between the drowned and the damned. Stuck out of time, without so much as glasses or a watch, I mostly  must make due. Here today there is no tomorrow. Here today another treasure to bury without chart or map. Drink it down, hope for one more.