chimera obscura

We are a hard language made
whole by the drift of definition,
balanced thing and word after
thing and word broken,
feathered words spreading meaning
leaving objects solid, alone.

The child winds up piecework--
the mother’s eyes, the father’s nose,
grandmother’s hands,  grandfather’s
easy way with bird and beast.
We see the stitchwork cleaving
the seams of the world and so
cannot help but pull at each loose thread.

Nothing remains itself too long
now that the symmetry between
name and named has faded,
each word a nomad sleeping upon the sand,
each item a rest stop for storied legions
leaving empty tracks to the wind.

Speak once, and the nested doll
opens, broken into tales woven:
tears to rain to piss to rivers
flowing like a fog, easing like
the dusk down upon a beloved horizon.
We stare hard into the eyes of our souls
seeing swarming words.