Timely Considerations
response to poetry prompt “postmodern love signs”
She was plural, by the way of it
and yet her love was singular
but partly dead
so she ran west
tracked by old crows
descendants of dinosaurs
gargoyles flexing their bat wings.
Five years separated them
arduous paperwork
a civilian labyrinth
wasps’ nests
eventually,
immigration officials relented
and they married in mutual refuge
trading their collected daydreams
where the mountains meet the desert
and a medium-sized city looks on
in the shadow of the rain.
Skin glue for me
bone candy for you
marrow suckled
in a dry and high place
at the base of eastern slopes
just enough to scrape by on
a toehold at the pine table
strewn with clever devices
random artifacts of plague
threatening hordes of
pens
pencils
markers
paints and pastels…
What a joke —
she was never going to use all those art supplies.
Time blows like a billowing sail in youth
in age, it condenses fast and hard
pounding out
at the base of a waterfall
rejoining the river of source
my old flame Chronos
comes knocking like a metronome
bound up with perception
there is no doubt
insurance seminars go much slower
than an evening among friends
relativity revealed by the
converging mandalas
our trajectories trace.
Thanks to J.D. Harms and Melissa Coffey for this inspiring prompt! It is a great pleasure to witness the art of your lovely and literary courtship.
