The Ends

Every day, but always from beside — no faces.
All ear and profile: common thinking.
All bits of tape.
All on the same sagged birthday banner.
All co-adheased,
crackly and tenuous.

Stuck there too: you live also in your pocket;
across the hemisphere.
Built by two thumbs in thirsty cadence:
a synchrony by chance;
a tautness that suddenly was;
stretched on finger taps and data bits.

Here, together,
you both drape-dry your wrinkly fullnesses —
both are steadied;
both tangle in its elastic
and swing jocularly from its heights;
both announce and share in the echo;

all the while you are aware
that when twisted for reason,
the tautness unfurls.
But when you tug —
today anyway —
the tautness always tugs back.

Out from your pocket, still stuck on the banner,
you are cautioned
about keeping a tautness, unseen —
told to accept the banner’s sagging;
just glint with its glitter
and join its refrain.

Still, your worries are back in your pocket:
gut-matter pulled by its swishes and sways.
But your greatest worry,
is whether the tautness will hold you,
when you crack free from present adhesion
and run to join the distant, unseen ends.