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When you finish burning, what’s left sends a black thread of smokethrough fresh ash like a handwaving the last of us away.You didn’t ask to return,if you did, God never answered,passing your request to some minor deity,some lesser bird of paradise.Nonetheless, you’re here,your body the shape of a milk snake,whale shark, dust devil—something only appearing to be
A thousand large wings; the tickings and tocksof a thousand small clocks; fifty sprung springson the dark dark sidewalk; sometimes, I say,it’s like padlocks tsking around their keys; burning sod; burning trees; burning knee sockscracking blackly on their pins; picture breeze, I say, when you’re dying to sleep; it pings your lips like pine shade; blood is not it; day-light
But sometimes waits for years to see it pass overheadmaybe it coasts elegant as a white boator rides loose and wild as gray hair torn from sleep,and when it disappearsthe same wind that pushes it from viewencourages the tree to say goodbye, leaves flashing like minnows—
It became a time when song no longer soaredbut climbed, hand over hand up a taut rope. One cracked voice was all it took. Cathedrals bombed and gone, carcasses opened to the sun,their old hysterias leaking out as new wisteriatwined slowly round. When the war finally came, it surprised us all by how old-fashioned it was, with a clattering hail of gunfire, shells falling like
Breakfast did not taste normal, so I went to Gilcren, questioning.He cracked me on the face and said there were ants in the cereal, which was of course my fault. I had, years ago, dislearned, which made me always to blame for trouble of this kind. I have an idea how this will sound, but events do map a life. Smarting from Gilcren’s hand, I came again to the single fact: