Two swans, apparently representing the departed parts of you, 

neck the lake beside the water plant, long enough to check 

your paddling. No matter how much longing it takes. 

 

By now, you’re using every moment you’ve ever known or flown 

or flowed through. Shadow whispers to shadow as you arrive 

with the grace of grass, the wind’s memory breathless. 

 

Sheathed roots: your death a last plastic cable to tomorrow. A depth, 

a debt. Forgiving it. Sensing what’s coming, contriving to ignore 

the why inside silence itself, adjusting to the tacit shelving. 

                                 

Below any rusty irony, the latest unshared stake bets on catching up 

to yours truly. Loving oneself more for all this fear: the rats 

shuffling through your latest dreams. Relentless recriminations 

 

becoming unforgiven shenanigans becoming leftover fog across 

your circumstantial cemetery. And over there – another shy memory 

beyond embarrassment. Simple animal resilience, your real life 

 

having past. “The past” now on sale, reduced to wounded tribalism. 

Small change, unacknowledged credit perpetuating discontinued 

entitlement. The spaces between numbers, substituting for

 

themselves. Still, wishing you could do it all over again. Wishing 

those swans mattered outside your asking. Each enlightened bird, 

every heavy human. Serial greed, condo condolences. 

 

The usual excuses & curses, without you. 

Giving in to displaced indifference. 

Giving up ghosts.