Stray, Puppy

Lately I feel like Time is taking my memories from me
one by one
and he hangs them on a silvery string around his neck like the teeth of his enemies or like ears cut from the fallen
like charms to ward away his immortality

I’m sure that when you’re Time the eons seem like such a prison
nothing ever changes
nothing ever ends
nothing has ever ended
or ever will

and all of that Forever leaves one with a thirst for closure

So I feed him my memories
A little something every day to keep his energy up

He gets fed twice on the days I dream the morning away
and on the nights I drink myself into forgetting

And now when Time follows me like the stray puppy Momma warned me not to feed
the handmade silver collar around his neck jingles
rattles like a chain in some stupid ghost story

I don’t mind the reminder
I feel sorry for something so helpless that it can’t even gain a new perspective

but every time I try to give it one of mine
I get a new one instead

Scuffed

The swingset creaks under our weight while the slack chains creak in the rising Oklahoma wind and the moon strains to be seen through a low blanket of clouds.

My toes stretch, bare, too cold, soles scuffed from our barefoot midnight walk, longing for the nearest branch with its splash of newborn green, its nursery of leaves yawning and unfurling after their winter nap.

The air smells like electricity, like change, like life borne on the wind, or on the wings of great flights of birds come back from the southlands to weigh down the lines that make our computers and telephones and fluorescent lights work nonstop, all the time, forever.

Your shadow is long underneath the street light, and the gusts tug at your trenchcoat, crying anachronism, and threaten to pull you away like some kind of backwards Marry Poppins into the night.

The currents make dimples in the black skin of your umbrella and its handle twists against your palm, willing you to let yourself go as the first few fat drops splash in your hair, on your nose, on your forehead, and cling to your eyelashes.

We all laugh in different languages and mouth silent goodbyes to the chalk effigies on the sidewalks, and suddenly the air is ten degrees cooler and the sirens start humming to tell us yes – this is the front.

What I love about this season is all of the destruction and the renewal, and the way the rivulets and the puddles take the stinging heat from my scuffed soles.