Upon a Time

“You know, Anathema,” she said, “I believed in magic, once.
And since that time, I’ve never known where I belonged.”
She closed her eyes and waited, but the whisper didn’t come.

She saw the pale and bleached out version of her life on fast forward, how
The water swelled and pushed at the threshold of the valley house.
Her blood cells filed, one by one, buoyant through the vessels,
While the rafts all shuddered, sinking, to rest with the ashes of the homes of men.

“There was sun, then, you’ll remember, and the reptiles on the rocks,
Blinking lazily and soaking up the light, until we circled back, to the origin.
If you wish to find the light, Anathema, seek the serpents of the globe.”

The raccoons root for mussels at the bottom of the creek,
While the herons wade the rushes in the shallows down the way.
The bridge connects, spans the diffusion of the customs she reviled,
Disturbs the peace of trickling water and the destiny of the prey.

“You never told me how we got here, how we got to this same day.
The swami said it didn’t matter, said I’d find my counterspin.
I suppose your thoughts do cancel mine, and that seems quite enough.”

The barkeep poured his bourbon with the ghost limb doctors made
And the ice cracked in the glass like his hand had as it crushed.
Somewhere else, the sigh through mountain passes spawned a downdraft
And twisted metal wings compacted the dirt a little tighter.

“I never noticed how my heart felt, as it contracted night and day,
Never noticed the futility to our haphazard ways of life.
Where will my memories go, when I’m not here to hold them?”