Cul de Sac
Bitterness or whatever apparently swivels like a telescope.
And now it’s trained this way: toward the light that shines
In my eyes and pays out a line of sudden indifference,
Like sleep in a wave cresting, and I swear you are the cause
Not me. For I was there, right here, not just waiting but
Dawning and dreaming and digging into an unknown
Country they told me was called the future, and moment
-arily happy or something, shit, but guess what I guess
I’m done. I search myself as if for missing keys, patting
Here and there and can’t find nothing and no, it’s not
My fault. You can glow all you want, and burn too, but
What this is isn’t what I laid out. I am slow as a clam,
True, but steady like the sand it sucks and spits, valving
With an eternal rhythm: on this you can depend, or could.
For there is no white moon this night, nothing romantic.
I’m hot no more. I still know the thing I knew, hold still
What’s damned obvious and as good as the silver in the sky
At night, but it’s not me, not my deal, not what I can hold
Or give or be honest about or grow with or live for or be.
I’m told turkeys and ruminants dodge the inevitable in
Similar ugly fashions and I don’t feel for their death.
Animals all. Let the games be dead. Forget me and I
’ll mosey off down this salt trek between cudgels and
fevers, observe the traffic, be good or bad, not finding
much difference that comes bouncing back either way.