arrived clanking and clacking
slid in shiftless, sideways, asking asking,
sought out life then set to rebuffing, 
not claiming, not hoping, not deriding,
just startled by the impending ending,
shed its meat suit and set to cajoling,
begged the keeper for the keys to the building,
had no notion for the remaining,
walked off the site, away from the ruling,
was it he, was it she, who owned the knowing, 
how the misery spread and kept flattening,
the creases, the lines, always creeping,
how to go about the business of holding,
as if yielding was the same as agreeing,
down the causeway came the gentling,
came the tulips, the goldfinch, the reckoning,
how it bent and bowed through the telling,
heard the music and set to swaying,
sounded the call and paused for the thrusting, 
swung right, then left, always shifting, 
spanned the length of this portion pressing,
the pleats, the contours, the with-holding,
down the walkway with the lilies and trimmings,
called this you, called this me, but kept crumbling, 
climbed up and then down, bare connecting,
feet to earth, hands to sky, channeling,
was there a moment it wasn’t performing,
what wasn’t a sloughing, or shelling, 
skin tugged tight over the soul, like a gloving, 
out flowed the water, the blood, the raving,
and yet the wanting kept attaching, 
the wanting kept scrounging, 
while it paced, it sought the unveiling, 
scorned the calcium, the plaque, and the splitting,
fancied life both fecund and prime for the pining,
met the ground hardly gleaming,
like a firefly’s fitful flickering, 
headed home rainbow-shot, still dreaming.

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Image: “Gary’s Clouds” by Maisie Weissman