.

The fault of sages

.

Love was there

spreading hope like jam over my taste buds.

Then the first skipping rope broke,

got snared on a fence and frayed.

I stole away on a subway train where

hundreds have gone walking into a warzone.

Amen to the end and the predator’s

happy-go-lucky disposition. One claw,

one tentacle, in flowing precise motion.

Another lifetime and it may be different,

tender as lovers beneath their first full moon,

or worse, like cartilage deteriorating.

I rehearsed a familiar pattern,

sabotaging memories to find a way to be holy,

to make only God matter, dismantling adult days

of calculation, days of stultifying impulses,

of consciously unplugging the push of inspiration.

I flicked the splinter and loosened its stem, learning

that every homecoming is different – some shed

their most treasured members, others,

an accommodating persona. Still others constrict

just to pitch thought and…