It stands over her watching
It spends a lot of time looking over her shoulder
It is no more than a shade
It has been here a long time
It’s got the edge on her
It feeds her scraps
It gives her the creeps
It mouths the words mouthing them, phraseology
She tells it to go away
It breathes down her neck, palming its clammy skin
on her bare arms
She sweeps it up and throws it away but it keeps on
coming like dust
It breathes on her neck, a fierce wind
It lives in caves
It lives in sleep and dreams
It is dreaming her, creatology
It says she’s too passive
It says she needs to act
It wants to coexist
She says it’s too coexisting
She says she doesn’t need any help
She says it knows everything, doesn’t it
It stands sunlight-like
It stands spot/light stage
It wears no shades
It is alone
It stands 3’ away. & tall
It is dressed in a dark gray suit, with pinstripes
It wears wingtips
dark gray, new
It is full of night, too full
full of mirrors & stars
She wanders—awe returns
It becomes a dream, a lover
becomes breath on skin, arm of touch
to endure the act, go down
to crystal, iron to linger
figure it out, even to guess
clarity. A new language, syntactology
It has gotten carried away
She has carried it away
She has flown away with it
Her muse
She is breathing down its neck
Her hands are all over it, warm
She is riding it now
Bless her spirit
Now then
She roars across the globe
She is standing guard, watching it
All night. Full. Fuller
breathing down its neck
She knows what it’s going through
Gnoseology
How true
She tries to avoid it
with feeling
She makes it disappear
She holds up the sky along the way
She keeps it to herself, secretology
Originally published in Guillinna on Four Wheels by Sandra Squire Fluck. Available on Apple Books and Amazon Kindle.
