Lifeline

Published May 30, 2019.

my glasses got bigger as

my hair got smaller as

each year became a

smaller fraction

of the fraying thread

(or perhaps it is dental floss)

that is my lifeline

(one day, among the roses, a pair of garden shears may see fit
to join their blades in holy matrimony while snugly resting
around the long string pulled taut by years of “when are you
going to make me some grandchildren” and the crisp tone —
like that of a paper cutter splicing half-sheets of second-grade
homework, or perhaps a guillotine — a sharp intake of breath
that brings no life into a set of lungs but only particles of ice
that pierce the walls of quivering flesh that deflate like a
balloon that got a little too confident and missed the flock of
geese in the distance because maybe their honks were from
cars below but very far below and much too far to be audible
to this bright-red nomad in the stratosphere for whom a
sharp beak is akin to harsh words uttered across the oddly
clean dinner table whose five legs — why five? — are not at
all the same length but are trying their best so that the bowl of
alphabet soup does not slide slowly down the table and fall to
the floor before the old woman with poor reflexes can fail to
stop it from spelling “caveat emptor” on the carpet)

for now

i sit

one more counterfeit anarchist

in a cafe that pretends 

to be hip

via salvaged barn wood

industrial lighting

and coffee served in mason jars