Press the key you wish to define
now. Later, outside, you can say
the slosh is softer this year, or
mercy loops its own trail, mucking
through the triumphant pillars of
mastery—moment’s solace, forfeiture’s
plenitude. I’d wave my hand maybe
four or five times before noticing
that I was asleep, cascading in the blue
mist far from the sash and saddle
of another march down the self-
same street, the paddy without
wagon that hoes its emblematic
embrace. Far, too, from the fissure
in the cracks of what determines our
reconciliation (lubricious
assimilation of convocation). The stick
no longer mangles its allure, if not
justification, which scrambles a little
faster every time you lunge to grab it.
Enough for now, or the now that
yesterday promised, mobbed by angles,
abandoned to insistence.