It wasn’t sudden, nothing to be startled over.

Just a patch that he watered every

Morning.

The fibers lost affinity for one another, and the water ran

Through to the

Mud.

An itch, a scratch;

A tear, a gash.

~

The sonic surge cracked in the air above my car.

Where are we going? The charge wrapped my chest;

My stomach.

Down there,

They were down there; an absolute death trap.

Where are we going?

Kicking through the rubble of a project not half finished;

The contractor’s stale ham and swiss and flat Sprite giving up hope on

A sawhorse.

Tearing back the poly wrap, diffracting

The incandescent

Blaze of the aluminum cone lights; watching the

Same eight-foot illuminated scene all

Day, all

Night, and all

Day

Again. Burning its little fucking eye out.

Still here; the two of them. The charge releasing my center and the pressure’s

Gone, but they’re here to stay. One beyond my years, another

Not far behind my own.

I see the oldest first; the pair of pearly black mirrors.

Mass is space and color’s now the static signal after

Lady Liberty’s final glowing midnight image on the Super Zenith.

With a dry smack,

                                It pulls when you’re bound

                                And holds when you’re drowned.

                                She takes when you’re spent

                                And begs for repent.

 

                                You’ll feel the April sun,

                                And her ambassadors

                                They’ll ride the southern wind

                                Along your neck

                                And your eyes shut.

                                But you can’t allow more,

                                Just a blink, now, that’s it.

                                You won’t remember it.

                                You can’t.

                                Your ride’s on its way

                                Crushing winter skulls,

                                To take you away.

                                Stay.

Mirrored to opaque once more, and the younger comes forward.

Saying nothing, he smiles: A picture of my grandfather and I, in muddy boots and

Fishing poles whose tips tickle the buds of an overhead basswood.

His long hair, on both head and face, shoulder slouched and head drooped to one

Side, not afraid of it falling on the budding clover. It’s just one weight, whole in one place

At the very same time, no residual dragged along the way or forgotten in an isolationist

Carpeted concrete crash pad north of the river bank, a black bowl burning a hole in the coffee

Table between my two legs; bare branches sticking up from the trunk that’s sinking into the plaid

Cushioned couch.

The smile shrugs from his face.

Trees like fragile black fingers in a lake of watercolor fire in the sky; so many starving hands

Reaching up into the flames.

They blend once the flame’s cool; the persistent reaching, wanting more.

They grab towards the street lamps, finger paintings on the apartment wall.

I hated the change.

I grabbed for his hand through the plaid enveloping him, but he never grabbed back.

And now he’s down there; an absolute death trap.

~

The city truck pulled up on Monday morning, and planted a maple tree.

I thanked them, but they said it was standard. They said it was easy because the

Mud was so malleable.

It didn’t scrape or reach for the sun, but it rather just let it

Rest there.