A conversation is cut complete
from nonexistent cloth.
The idea embedded in a casual phrase
slips into the sludge of my meandering thought.
Everything’s imbued with meaning;
Nothing lacks for significance.
Days pass, then weeks:
I return to what was said
like a child picks a scab – –
Look! there it is again
bleeding its tendril roots
into paranoid fantasies of desire.
Each word, each syllable,
each intonation massaged
like fingers fiddling over prayer beads
for a meaning (my meaning),
some pattern in an ever-shifting context,
squeezing, like nits, each carved-wood rose
until the tenuous links in the chain snap
scattering all across my unsteady floor.
subtext 