the crown on down

It came to me as the glittering wings of numberless swarms trailed their sparks across the dusk. Awake to wave after wave of inferred multitudes, the thought only one set of wings alight upon a slip of wind. The shape I take and the wings I steal, the way the hand plays out. The world we see invisible, our work the mystery. A glass of water, measured in the swallows and all the empty left.

Here the black of a cup of coffee, there the black of the numbers on the struck dumb clock. The stitch in your spine, the skip of the spell. I resign myself to the curb and the stoop. I’ll stick to the stars and gods. The ritual and the taste.

We are gifted, we are given. The strain in the conversation, the message on the phone. The razor of reason, the razor of the reel. A dance upon us, a fire in spreading. The idea of fireflies, the streaks of falling stars. Number us among the smug sputterings of those safely beneath the lid. The crown on down, from the con to the quick. This mirror of missing, this song of steam.