My moment rings more blue
than yours, some
infinitesimal fraction
slower, the thought
broadcast through your eyes
misread. The blind spot
filled in by surroundings
altogether missed your gun
and I am falling
through a thousand
flashes of birdwing,
stone wall, field,
open doors
and familiar faces
with countless names.
Sidewalk, brick,
wrought iron
scandal
chain link eyes
dirt road
butterflies
rush headlong
with the tile floor
cool to the touch
and fading
into
Swallows circle.
Jetting dives,
they skim the water
then away.
An intricate play
of circles and spirals
entwine.
Each time they touch
upon the pond
an unseen life
is snatched away.
Spider riding
its own tension,
a fly, a gnat,
some larval form
of buzzing thing
inconvenient
or unpleasant to us
and better gone,
invisible
at this distance.
The swallow
is beautiful,
red head, white breast
blue across its back,
and the elegant
forked tail.
I admire its form
and grace
as I ride home
balanced upon
my own tension.
The gray smoke diction
of a fired gun.
A lifetime’s sentences
end in spattered points
of blood
then trailing exclamations
and question marks.
A single bullet
contains countless vagaries
of deflection, distortion
and fragmentation.
It thunders once from its cloud
and writes a soul
in shorthand on a stone
for readers to interpret
as best they will
the words of any god.
===
Posted for dVerse Poets Pub’s Open Link Night #45.
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