touchscreen

I don’t know if it’s that we ever said it, or that we never said it enough, or that the words ever even made it to that neighborhood in our proximity. I don’t know who we were, or even who we are. It’s more a device than anything else, but it’s the way we all speak now. Sticking to the fingers and the tips of tongues, heat and friction and something like the scent of blood there pressed into the plastic through the flesh. The conventions always weigh in until the conventions pass quaint. I know once we were words. Now it’s just me saying.

Now the sundown rain clouds spread out for effect, lighting swoony blue patches and the last labors of squirrels. The dogs track mud and action across the sloppy yard, dug hole puddles and runoff tides underfoot. The storm still swells towards the end of my senses from my fixed location, smoke fluming north across the back porch, cigar swinging between my knuckles sending benedictions of ember and ash flying. Smudged glasses and failing vision, the blood gone bad throughout the bloat of the organism, crows come home to roost. The cohort of storm and blood now another loser loitering on the stoop. The bearer of the returned star now another beggar with a broken bowl.

The flesh sets course through the seas and storms, the flesh relents tapping symbols into thoughts, cold air warm plastic patient smoke. The magic omits a few important details as you press yes after yes, unseen tumblers align, and trembles and temblors are loosed through the furtive paths. The soup is stirred and seasoned, the flavor drifting away from the currency of taste, the work of the burner and the bardo all in the pot. The flicked away ash reveals the ember as it turns to ash. The moment to moment until even this moment is lost. The wonder at empty left to ask.