Useful Fiction

An outline made of sand, time does not divide, this enormous present envelopes, erases barriers, senses’ boundaries.  A useful fiction, marked by history, possibility, location, a long sustained line stretching between us, other histories on the margin of our own.  They impinge, act out their will, etch themselves into skin, bleed into soil—a harvest of lives, what we are today.  Out the open window, morning glory vine. A moon over Idaho, big purple orb rising up out of ground—night sky, morning star.  Utah, Wyoming, Nebraska.  Trains grumble in the distance, lights cut dark, horns dissonance snort.  From opposite directions two pass with inevitable blare.  Steam clouds—banner streaming—golden silver wreaths.  Traveling demigods with sunset sky livery shake the earth, breathe fire and smoke.  Shades drawn, A.C. on, living a broad margin, making history present in long sustained lines.  A living useful fiction, this last week, two days left to make a gift the most in time.  Moments—glorious creations, little figures that multiply, stand on their own, shelter us within a grand expansive landscape with its own seasons, expanding horizons, atmospheres, vistas, part of not out of time.  Though the current speeds us along, absence matters less than presence.  Our living fiction mends the apparent rift, contains us, this hardest of days.  We make it as it makes us.  Each letter blends with the other, continuous, they overlap and merge, all part, an unbroken stream.  Reach out, pull me in when I come close…