heritable

You get to where you were always

headed, the outcome of every

fortune from the cut of

the deck to the folds of your fists,

scar flecked hands that hold 

all your futility, this rhythm

beaten into your sorry heart,

this note clutched long after

its shelf life expired. Maybe

we are meant for smaller worlds

full of prison art detail and

the bardo at the border of

these endless metaphors and

the sticks and stones that ring

our bells and reorder our

illusions the scale of change

and the rate of perception 

work the throttle leaning

hard into the turn,

the unknown wandering 

every road as we unwind 

into words and corners. Trees and

birds and language set loose,

rock piles and scratches, lines

dragged through the mud.

Wasp nest fine and crisp as

a voice in the pitch still night.

All these wings in flight

the sky a sudden shift

in the dialogue, a lapse 

only found in language and

the space between the stars.

It is this singing, slowed

up the same old grade,

this hill heavy with the flow of

love and bone,

a crumpled letter squeezed dry.