Sometimes the world really is flat
And ships go over the edges
of waterfalls roaring into darkness
And the sea monsters
Swallow them
Whole.
And then, the next moment,
the world is round again.
You are simply sitting there,
breathing.
At the bottom
Of the sea monster’s belly
There is a lake
And on misty days
You are not entirely sure
If the warmth
Is his digestion
Or if that really is
A sun-stroked land
Up ahead.
People come and go
As if all of this is normal.
Maybe it is.
Really, you are still multi-dimensional
Still substantially round.
Yet too much is flat
(and hot and crowded)
Too much is slippery and smooth
Untextured
Un grown, untendered.
That fraud - the clean blank silent slate:
As if the past never happened.
A more accurate truth: we are aging.
There is a callus
On the ring finger
Where his band
Used to rest –
Even in his absence
even in his aching quiet
He is still there.
In the morning
The rain came.
The waters we sail on
Fall from the sky
(where we were once dreaming)
Onto all of us sailors
Blurring distinctions
Between sound and
silence
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