Studying Old Axes

Imagine the mountains are moving closer, imagine a light in the mountain becoming clearer, imagine no mountain. 

In the void is a single daisy.

This is not death.

Several cups of coffee later I find myself regretting a certain sentence and wishing I could rewrite it yet accepting without question that I cannot.

The Reagan family abattoir.

Stretches of highway with no motel, spotty reception, light rain making the macadam gleam.

But what do you feel?

Boys who never cared for trucks because they were comprised of straight lines and metal (against which the light ended) and because even then it was clear that slopes and bends - and transparency - were the Lord.

Maple leaves still hanging on the trees alongside Main Street, late portents.

It it not necessary to take me with you when you go.

Lace veils behind which much is hidden but nothing lost.

How she cried when it was time to leave the casket, how I threw myself to my knees demanding favoritism in that musty gaslit parlor.

Bad jokes.

Breakfast with my son, business-like but now and then we laugh.

What is perfect if not this?

A silence that is welcome but not desired, a visitor who is desired but not welcome.

A life in which libraries have factored in nontrivial ways.

In the middle of the night a handjob, coming hard across her expert fingers, not sleeping after but only resting beside her on a sea I did not create but which sustains me nonetheless.

In the barn with morning coffee, studying old axes, a kind of openness in me masquerading as confusion.

Many reflections, translucent signifiers, a world melting like ice on an old cast iron stove.