jackalope

You go down to the crossroads just like everybody says,  waiting for a stranger, looking for a sign. All there is is that much more traffic, passing fancies and marks on the road. Just the gravel and the grit, the wander and the weight. Your smile spackled with dust and soot, your words struggling to find their way free. Spit your rhymes and say your prayers, the answer is always the same. Lucky numbers or stolen portents, you call it what you want to and mark it no-one really knows.

You differ with each speaker, you recall each spin and surge. The line of tradition one long underscore for all these plaintive rages and animal urges. The story that you would have told if only everybody would simply play their parts. The shadow cast from a want of shape, the spilled dance of fire pushing against each furtive obstruction, such thunder the black after every flash. The puzzle always needing different pieces, all this screaming just practice for when the fear gets here. The mystery the only thing that stays.

The sound of wings disturbs the branches. Something shifts its position in the blind heavens, blessing a direction picked by stumbling in the dark. The moon is up and bright and begging for attention. Even the air seems aware that it is unsettled. Even the colors creep into variations of gray. Every prophecy a pastiche of fact and wish, the direction that has to follow if words are to be believed. You call it by its name, you call it as you see it. The portion just enough to choke on and still remain unknown.