Strains

That unfamiliar knowledge of what
it means to be whole, when the world
caved in and nothing we could tell
was left in place or organized.

Then there, at the places where our
hearts untangle and we feed our noble
occupations with dreams of afterlives,
of hobbled and steely imperfections
that make their way to platforms of
hardened hope unfurled and waving,
beckoning to another settled thought
and an other fetid, taut misadventure:
nothing can make us immortal or even
deign to take part in our grand undoing;
because will's worth more than all that
fucking money, or any of that fame and
goddamn reputation.

In a quiet cavern, you can find me
preparing a dinner by candlelight,
just me and my small ones, ringed
by the flickering dreams of
all those endless murmurings that
give me the power to head out again
into that blinding day, untoward
and unbuckled from anything you
say or want or think that I should do.