sobriquet

There may be smoke, but the fewer mirrors the better. Only so far to go on looking glasses as the road trends rough, some fleeting missive, some bars of broken old code. All the places blur,  the faces a jumble on the time line, the stories only changing hats and swapping spit. Suddenly the conductor is calling out, cities turned to stops, counting aloud the end of the line. It’s the stories trading elbows, jostled onto the wrong stop, the names they were given become the names they earned. Brick by brick our self deceptions grow to devour the possible, to engulf whole civilizations as Babel again tumbles down, the same old tricks sold as the holy and the new. Every corner crowded with coming new ages. 

Lights go on, lights go off, traffic bristles by. The day in remission at last and the mercury taking a dive, a stippling of stars and wanderers, satellites and aircraft glimmerings of uncertain hues as the pass between obscure branches out of view. Remainders left despite the distribution and the math, worn through lenses left to their own devices as the witness winds down. A map of attrition and confusion left to the reckoning of dubious machines. A face that changes with the weather and a name that never took. One for the highlight reel, one for the books.

It could be the story of starlight, it could be the story of wishing upon a star. Details sorted by category, facts presented pleasingly, the art arrived from afar. Description spent upon the shape of the topiary and the shade of the foliage, words spent calling a feeling inward from the atmosphere, consciousness largely autonomic and ambient. The estrangement elongated with every year, and the years swift and nondescript, all the slow time used up on last loves and rainy days, not so much forgotten as remembered all too well. Those nicknames to save time catching up at last, another name that no one means, empty honorifics and beat down crowns. A name bestowed to avoid entanglement, a love letter thrown straight into the trash.