tethered

It’s a Merlin thing, the way we know ourselves. Chasing lost wisdom. Gathering low hanging fruit, speaking with authority of the fecundity of unreached limbs. A huddle of angels jabbering away at a burning brand, the clamor of competing hosts, the night’s greatest hits on shuffle. The turning words and the savaged flesh. The whole, then the numberless pieces.

This rush of cognition, the hot end of time. The foundations fall away, tomorrows dwindle. All third wheels and fifth business. The time stretches between scenes, until there’s barely a line to remember. From daybreak to dissolution, soup to nuts. Then the hard blackout. The tremblings about unlikely curtain calls.

Tell me the words that are worth remembering. Show me the shapes in the stars. The room is small, the night is heavy. The stories all wind by the window, tales that rise and fall as tides. These bones held here in hope and pain. This claimant to crown and thorn, this hard held hill. These waling ghosts clamoring to be named. The never I am tethered to.