Pearl

Charity cases

Absolving of the drama

Like two dimensional theaters,
a videogame of narrative without dialogue

That is played by merely walking though

As if getting and losing money are fundamental components of the game

Like rowing a tiny boat in turbulent seas

Waiting for the next hungry pair of hands
to turn us up like so many evaporated river stones

The desert calls to me
like an electrically charged air

In the falling snow,

She whispers the hatred

Of the trivial,

in subversions of excess.

As we refrain from tearing into their marrow.
patient for the next belligerent

For the next snowstorm,

For the next little stoat to scamper off with something stupid

the next broken human to limp into our lives and be in the fucking way.

the next shitty love poem to erode the discernment of quality

and yet, our wings are greater

oft upon greater endeavors

and still, it resolves as a kind of boredom

infecting the will to continue

like a rain of micro-anxieties as the snow begins to stick

the far-off suffering of others

comes to inhabit our souls as one of our own

occupying a place that is comfortable but unwanted

as if some shellfish

bearing minerals to past transgressions,

in some iteration of comfort

beyond the reality of ‘here’ and ‘now.’