Tag: time
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Minor Extinctions
At fifty-one I am mostly sediment, with a thin layer of optimism still visible near the surface…
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To the Man I Might’ve Been
You never made it out of the early days.I see your face sometimes in the mirror—same jaw,but your eyes aren’t tired yet. You had plans.Straight lines and clean hands.You really thought grit alone would get you through.I admire that.Even now. There were forks you didn’t see,roads I walked instead.Some of them cost more than they…
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Choke Town
The butcher’s sign still swings,though the shop’s been guttedsince Gaz ran a hose from the tailpipeand left the lights on. The school gate’s rusted open.Wind sifts chalk dustthrough cracked windowswhere names once lined the rolllike prayers in hell. Down at the silo,kids mainline in the shadowof grain that never came.One girl carved a starinto her…
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Whalesong
for the ones who sing into silence Somewhere below the shimmer linewhere light forgets itself,a whale turns slow in a cathedral of salt—each scar on her skina stanza. She sings,not to summon,not to find—but to remember. A song older than shipwrecks.Older than ropes and sails. The deep drinks it.Holds it like breath.Lets it echoalong trenches…
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First Smoke
I lit it behind the shedwith a match I struck on the tin—my thumb raw from trying. The cigarette trembledbetween fingers that still knewLego and scraped knees. I didn’t cough.Didn’t blink.Just held the burn inlike I was keeping a secretonly smoke could understand. The dog watched,head tilted,like he knew I’d crossedinto something I couldn’t uncross.…
