The how

of yesterday and because

wind back and forth like a snake,

its dry, just-shed skin still crackling with electricity,

refusing to give ground to tomorrow

and yet here

this is post-modern jargon

playing at being intelligible,

straight-faced and sober,

awake and grasping at four a.m.

while he rolls over onto his back,

starts to snore.

I nudge him with the back of my hand,

brushing cells against skin,

deforming microscopically,

pressure-points become imperfections become craters

as with each hour, each minute, each microsecond we grow older

struggle each morning to put names to feelings,

numbers to ideas,

words to paper.

Awaken with hope or with regret,

not voluntarily.

My consciousness cannot be written

but I crave to be understood.

Like the path through the woods

that doesn’t quite reach the water,

iteration of dust-mote, dried bark, mire, leaf-spring;

footfall becomes hollow becomes again perfection;

vistas within vistas,

the last turn never unfolds.