the givens

The nerves all run at a burn, the air stirred with ink and static. The dark and cars have taken all the spaces. Ascension II is sizzling through the atmosphere, smoke is climbing up the sky. It’s clear enough to give witness to the wanderers, cold enough that gloves ought to have been given a thought. Saturday night comes along at a reckless gallop, people off and people out. Coltrane rings out, rippled with the sounds of traffic and traveling music. Something electric alongside the usual froth and sparkle. The hole of the sorrow, the weight of the stone.

It’s just the sort of smile where the teeth don’t really care enough to bite. It’s the eyes checking their messages, the long slow stride of the deeper notes, the flesh beneath these festive lights. The gnawed up words, the empty breathed sentiments, the long look away. Out steeped in the chill winds and the insistent shadows, out of favored out of circulation, choking on the same old same old and circling antecedents. The dishing it out to taking it rate fearsome one sided.

It takes a long time for the words to work their way through me. It takes a long time for me to catch the drift. I do much of what I do poorly, though I’m not the one to ask. The reasons I had have long since turned to dust and charms. Looking at it now, when I thought I had little, to realize it is still less. After the givens, the sum of frets and gifts. These word problems come home to roost.