‘All of these are little worlds that some people immerse themselves in, or dip in and out of, or make fun of, or build a light and temporary link to before they move on to something else. And there are always pockets of things left hanging in the air. Layers of habit, pipe dreams, and power plays skitter or languish all around.’

Kathleen Stewart, Attunements: 452

1 a: a minute and often barely detectable amount or indication
a trace of a smile
b: an amount of a chemical constituent not always quantitatively determinable because of minuteness
2 a: a mark or line left by something that has passed
also : FOOTPRINT
b: a path, trail, or road made by the passage of animals, people, or vehicles
3 a: a sign or evidence of some past thing : VESTIGE
b: ENGRAM
4 : something (such as a line) traced or drawn: such as
a: the marking made by a recording instrument (such as a seismograph or kymograph)
b: the ground plan of a military installation or position either on a map or on the ground

Mother of pearl
Mother of man
A pale rippled shell suspended in ink
Skin melts to water and dry ashen bones crumble into solid stoic rocks
Two bodies pressed together as one sway gently along the path
As the sound waves break over cold brittle air
Beneath the willow boughs
Watched over by her weeping limbs
Leaves droop to kiss the canal
What sounds does a swan make in slumber
Head beneath a wing
White feathers carve a mountain from landscape of lake
Somewhere over there muffled laughter can be heard
Leaves rustle
Clunks of ice cracking
A childs toy rattling
Shards splinter in song as they are tossed across a hardened top
Where the tame things are
Where the wild things are not
Nebulous nets of existence contaminate and condense and collapse
Futile acts of affect dissipate into nothingness on an orb of organisms hurtling through space
One things revolves around another again and again
Spinning in space
Cosmic cascade
Resolved to an eternity
of endless motion
Singular
Entwined
thread felt tangle track sort
We move and groove and shift and shake
A glistening implosion endless and ubiquitous
Dancing dust
Submerge
Struggle
Sink
And waves wither one by one
As the sun falls below the line where soil meets sky
Pulled by the weight of the world

Breath awash with whiskey and strong handed I sponge my lids with purple shadow, remnants of my youngest days. When the cherry smacked liquid gloss and pink crop tops were envied in all the ways I couldn’t say. Clouded platforms and beaded plaits, teetering off toward freedom.

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