Omni-feeling how false you are
to be everywhere one perceives.
What red cold heroin -
seductive brother.
What deer has ever pretended to do more then
stand and graze and run when afraid?

There is a place short of grass surrounded on all sides
by a horizon. Wet.

And we can stumble with the best of them.
The end all/be all of unconditional
found failing. Shapeless
like a promise.
Like a rabbit, stooped & shivering. Shaken
by the same shadows it once stretched
to frame its form.

There is a sound in, & around, the end of
everything. Fallen.

Like black alabaster or a fertile dove
loved and in love with a crow -
I am their son pigeon. Eager to follow the road paved in crumbs
back and forward until I learn to take flight
and fly
out of the story book I'm in and on to some solid tree.

There is shade pressed against my feathers so hard that it is a part of me;
my feet clenching so hard that I, too, am a tree. Grounded.

All glory to the growing things.
All circles turned to dust.
All air exhaled & plans unkept.
All that's left
of us.