“Desire is a moment with no way out”
–Anne Carson
I parse each moment’s possibility
Pretending the past can be reconciled
With present desires. Memory wears me
Like a palm stone smoothed from idle handling,
Until no difference exists between
Me and what I have perceived to be me.
The unstable threads interlace with all
The lies, the truth, the last dry sip of gin.
The metaphor for myself unravels:
The little that was left unsaid is said,
And the air sparkles with embarrassment.
I have built constructs out of Tinker Toys,
Vast whirligigs of simplistic ideas
To clack and flail in an ignorant wind.
(December 6, 2018)
