honesty.

I hesitate briefly with fingers on keys,
Before I decide to proceed as I please
(Despite old misgivings and newer mistakes
That strongly encourage applying the brakes).

The truth is the truth isn't totally there,
But making the most of it stands to be fair
Since most of the most of it surely sounds true.
(And doesn't that seem more authentic to you?)

It doesn't much matter if facts fall in line,
As long as I note that this version is mine.
Those people who read what I'm dying to say
Are sure to be sure of the facts, anyway.

No, I won't deceive, I will merely suggest
That there may be facts that they've failed to divest?
Oh, don't think me unctuous, unkind, uncouth --
It isn't a lie to cast doubt about truth.

farewells.

I looked behind me one last time.

It's not like the cello, the thought came in a moment, not like the way your fingers learn to mold themselves to invisible curves and crevices that your mind maps into notes you're searching for, joined together, released like a linen banner by the steady back-and-forth of your trembling bow. How the melody in your head flows in synapses that lift and let fall the tendons in your arm and wrist and hand. Free to flutter and fade with the fog of your November breath, lingering in an empty chamber full of promises for the future. No, it's not like that at all.

It's like digging a pit and watching as time turns its walls to stone.

I found him, finally. He stood still, while the steam and scream of the billowing locomotive stack swallowed first the world behind him, his silhouette stark against the twisting eddies of cloud whites and the churning grays of formless shuffling shapes. I imagined I could see his eyes - blue and narrowed, mirroring mine in their uneasy mix of resignation and intensity - but by then they were dark specks, shrinking by the moment, until he vanished completely, joining the current of unintelligible movements replacing a world I was leaving behind.

tide.

It patters soft-pawed,
a pointed ambling
across my mind,
dodging wheels,
leaping curbs:

this stray notion
(a reminder)
that every morning
the sun rises

illuminating
in seven billion
beating hearts
oceans of joy
and swirling sorrow

and who knows which
will wash ashore today

in scissored mementos
of scissored moments?