Don't tell me you don't hear it too. Rising out of sight, it sweeps around blind corners like a noisy broom. Tugs at tangled strings, threatens our torpid silence.
I know how hard it is to draw breath nowadays. Like a beak-held branch, my pencil stalls in the turbulence. Hovers, veers. Looks for a place in some woven nest.
A helm bar forms along the ridge. Rain is coming. Its track is fixed; we can only trim the sails before it is an overhowl. No shelter found in the ribs of a broken umbrella.
You keep saying it may not be so bad; yet spring tides are also lapping at our heels. Get in the swim. Take a life jacket from under the seat. And don’t forget to remove your shoes.
iv. 2024
adore this, MC. such an intricately structured tangled series of prose stanzas, sculpted from twinned words — blind corners, noisy brooms, tangled strings, woven nest, beak-held branch — arriving at perhaps the most painful-stark-visual of all: “No shelter found in the ribs of a broken umbrella” and a killer final line. gorgeous, this will stay with me
ReplyDeleteThat's generous Casey, thank you. Maybe it's a better poem than I gave it credit for when first written. Or maybe it just suits our present weather ...
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