hoarwithy

i’ve been getting into coffee again, says the one with the hollow bones,
like i always do when the spirals behind my eyes start tightening again;
if you look you’ll see it there, the end of the string that can be pulled out from the iris.
the constriction is pleasant, head full of bees and old, old (now falling into ancient) stories
coffee reminds me of the dragon, peaceful in her kitchen and no danger to me at all.

the sun is shining over a body that feels like an empty marble,
seeping into the ridges left behind by the forgotten footfalls of a past i wasn’t here for;
innumerable hot citrus rays of light soaring above the road to the wayfaring tree.
(as quiet and unnoticed as i am)
and the papers are still unwritten with the chain dangling on the blunt side of the knife
the withered hand near my head is dripping with disapproval.

the flowers bloom over it.
you need not worry, because the flowers bloom over it.
the hand is only there if you refuse to move.
i’ve already left it far behind, in the time it took you to walk down the path with me.

since you’re still here in the garden, the plum blossoms are in bloom again,
and the only way to fill a glass marble is to crack it open and fill it again with gleaming gold;
seal and reseal until the end of time together, hands melding across the eras that idly pass us by. we’ve swam in those shadows. our friends at last.
the stone slabs near the door, tainted with the mud of the last season, now washed clean with iridescent rain and reborn with soft grey from the fingernails and the eyelids.
it’s been called a duck egg summer.
by then the bees will fly out and pollinate the garden
and it will bloom and bloom and bloom.

you’d think it would end there.
hopeful note of optimism.
i suppose it still does.
that’s all we all are in the end, isn’t it?

[Image: berries from a garden. Source: Dani Relbyn. Used with permission.]