the gloaming

***

I watched the sailboat crawling across an ocean of sand, the dragon birds swimming through the sky of pure liquid tea, the whispers of clouds stained red with such a pomegranate morning. How strange: Everything natural knows to tiptoe , & we alone are portent enough to shake and shout and spread our rust.   I had just enough time in the world to look your way.   And!- the bridge, growing smaller in hindsight, I swear I saw your hair swirling around your face as we lost the last of the light (or: we, growing bolder in foresight).  We pulled farther from the cheery sailboat, farther from the lofty birds, farther from the treacle sun- Where, where are we going?, I asked, but you seemed to have gone.

it seems to be the witching hour, again, already:

the rain outside lacks commitment
the tealight at my side lacks tenacity
the mind inside lacks pronouncement;

these the lackeys, these my friends,

burning Myrmidons left over from

 days of considerably more magic.

.

(how strange it is to be anything, at all)

***