perennial

The bets all placed

the steps now staggered

reeling from feel to feel 

moving from face to face

this absent dance,

this scramble across the parkway 

the lights flashing out a four way 

stop on some rainy yesterday

the slide unto impact,

another day saved for dreaming.

It won’t return, that 

gleeful bleeding mortality,

that triumphal turn

fighting back from the incessant edge,

now fly the fists of mitigation,

this evil season sinking

into whatever skin is left.