Bones quivering and yet the strings
of his ligaments tighten to the point he can
only stand still— swallow. Push words
down throat in small, silvery bullets of spit:
will I make it
home alive?
His eyes, syncopating like drum cymbals
in their sockets, seeing all the days, all
the years, tattooed with red x’s,
stacked high and set aflame:
a touch of hand
reverses him.
From his ashes: florets
staining the air with cinnamon.
Everything back to seed, back
inside the dark shell of nothingness,
the time before time itself. Yes,
a touch of hand might do it—
revert him to possibility,
render him a theory,
a wrinkle in the echo of one big bang
waiting for another to occur,
a peculiarity of
urban physics
either unsolvable or
not worth solving, unless
contrast makes for added
curiosity. Cameras. Coin.