in some cornered hour.
i pretend not to hear her.
it was so long ago when
she was a part of my life.
i have other concerns now,
that i straddle like a bridge over a heady height.
no time for faces and ties
that i barely remember,
with a vague nostalgia.
i wonder at this, the deadness of me
and the deadness around everything.
this very world
a restless shifting crust
trying to cover up some
burning insubstantial
with dirt and cracks and landfills-
so deep as to almost not exist-
except as accident and catastrophe.
a murmur, like hate, a railing at
inertia and momentum
the way the world resists a will
to start or stop, or even listen:
something
so vague, so tinny and blurred
i can't tell if orpheus sings to calm the harpies
or my sister screams up her furies
to an uncaring ceiling
lost again to shadows.
