Today

And then there is always this.
How desperate it is to return,
holding so much in the times between.
Excuses like cold, like fables for the moral.
Where else is there water that drips,
a rhythmic knot that thumps close by.
Unwelcome drafts prone to backing away,
why one hand experiences it more than another.
Entire cycles crammed into months, crammed into years.
Falling tendrils like parted hands,
guided by what happens to follow.
I am only here because there is nothing else.
Is it worth knowing the product of others’ invention
and the way they drag the net through what they’ve contained?
How long is the lowering
and what resists against shortened light?
I can hear the words that people speak
and sit in restored rooms,
nodding and sighing
and applauding when my brain catches the signals.
I can walk and stop and pass.
There is no other record,
insular and packaged,
tallied for outside reasons.
Nothing has been kept.
A circle burns in unison
and I go looking for a way to put out half,
a certain threat of instability
and other generalized likes:
to forget this cold that pushes passed the window
and the weakness of prepositions.
Without removing one space,
one inexplicably large waterway and what moves through it.
In the middle where the helm is met.