How could you know it would be like this:
touching the keys of a piano
and not finding a sound about it,
or the last seconds of a film squeezing itself
through the chokehold of a stubborn
faucet. All a wash. How unwilling you are to let go,
loosening a grip only because memory has dug
into the skin. You wonder if this thought too will vanish
in ethereal smoke: fairytales and slow dancing
alone in the snow, all the magic and brick fodder
mutating the collapsed air around you. Birthdays,
the quiet touch of summer and downtown’s simmer.
When did days wane so quickly—when was sleep so dark?
Ask for a lifetime back in its falling pieces; hold the sunlight
for a little longer as it slips your grasp, long enough
to memorize where you’ve been. All that is left is to tread
in your uneven wakes. You’ve done this all before;
some things you are born to do.
