Spindly limbs of power cables rise up above me and my brother
Not as young as we used to be, on the ring road
headed for the city; to mark a day, another year.
I found it again, today: the fey, affectionate inscription
an artefact from when we were aggressively nice to each other.
I’ll still write that kind of thing. People don’t, now
Maybe they outgrew the rank sentimentality of hidden handwriting
as hearts grew heavy-laden and learned what not to take on board
and when to give parts of themselves away, for keeps.
You never get to take it back.
Spindly cables thread the grey skies next to the high rise:
how to look at such a place and not wonder about the lives
the presents, the pasts, and I look at the powerlines
and at the back of my mind I remember: aren’t these things
supposed to be killing us, slowly?
I remember it; in the back of my mind: a vision that came to me
when I was young and could not distinugish dreams and reality
when I was small and did not understand my ideas had been had already
I visualized the bonds that kept us together; the whole sickly species:
they were spindly cables too, reaching their skinny limbs up to
the moon, near invisible threads lacing across the sky, veins, arteries
that connected our warm heart through the cold rock
basking in reflected light; afterlight from a sun
fires already burned, ghosts flitting across the sky.
Sometimes, when you talk to someone you used to know well
It’s perfectly civil and pleasant and maybe you’ll even smile
and there’s a moment you realize that this could be your last conversation.
The bond has gone, the cable frayed and snapped.
I look then, to the moon, which will outlast us all
and needs poetry like a fish needs a bicycle
and I picture all of you, try to imagine what you’re doing now
and I see the wiry cables stretching off, arteries, powerlines into the sky
and in the back of my mind, I remember
aren’t these things supposed to be killing us?
