Minified Ablutions

The drip-dim cellar of a star,
where one story contacts another
and the whole folds in on itself,
breaking and remaking the chances.

On banks of ice an eagle stands
in wait of silver, now winging
upwardly across my view and down
to something still more promising.

A gentle hum distorts some pain
and echoes in an old chorus
to beckonings providing space
for other kinds of vital rhythm.

And plastic, always plastic,
never far from plastic in this
tortured refossilizing realm,
using and disposing all we touch.

To sustain is to refrain or to
let go of what might come again
and open doors we've long forgot
that cannot take us back too far.

In the screaming expansion where
dust congeals and gives us ground
to stamp, seal, and overturn with
the liquids of our time, we wait.

An arm on a shoulder, the warmth
of breath, and perhaps there is
more than this, though finding out
means to depart and still not know.