Azoth
When I parted the curtain a wee sliver
to peek if a glisten on the black road
meant I’d be sweating inside a raincoat
walking that morning, I saw a stately doe
silhouetted against orange streetlight,
motionless like a corny lawn statue
in my dooryard. Stock still, I muttered
to myself under my breath and then over
my breath corrected myself: stump still,
because stock meant stump and still does,
even though great-grandchildren of those
who sometimes still said stock for stump
are long forgotten. And we don’t care
anyway, knowing what we know,
content to let what we don’t lie quiescent
in phones always on our persons—Beep-
Beep—full disclosure: I’m lying to you.
There is no “we” and I don’t own this know-
it-all phone, but I did know it would take
hours and miles to wake up, un-creak my back
and get sluggish blood to ooze through
old meat again and to forget the fitful dream
in which I made gold with the stone
I had to hide from philosophers, to awake
seized with dread that in my greed and pride
I’d failed to mix up an elixir of life--
and so there I was, waiting for a deer
to get a move-on as it started to sprinkle,
running out of time with all the time
in the world ahead and behind,
but just not now.
to peek if a glisten on the black road
meant I’d be sweating inside a raincoat
walking that morning, I saw a stately doe
silhouetted against orange streetlight,
motionless like a corny lawn statue
in my dooryard. Stock still, I muttered
to myself under my breath and then over
my breath corrected myself: stump still,
because stock meant stump and still does,
even though great-grandchildren of those
who sometimes still said stock for stump
are long forgotten. And we don’t care
anyway, knowing what we know,
content to let what we don’t lie quiescent
in phones always on our persons—Beep-
Beep—full disclosure: I’m lying to you.
There is no “we” and I don’t own this know-
it-all phone, but I did know it would take
hours and miles to wake up, un-creak my back
and get sluggish blood to ooze through
old meat again and to forget the fitful dream
in which I made gold with the stone
I had to hide from philosophers, to awake
seized with dread that in my greed and pride
I’d failed to mix up an elixir of life--
and so there I was, waiting for a deer
to get a move-on as it started to sprinkle,
running out of time with all the time
in the world ahead and behind,
but just not now.
