The Never of Now

Once I believed in proof, quietly solicited under the pillow in a note to some God: I am present and please reply in kind.

Once I believed in the extinction of fear, chiseled away like soapstone or drowned like a rabid kitten in a pickle barrel, not just transferred from hand to pocket to bag to box to box of a different shape.

Once I believed in the supertemporal movie, the supreme film reel recording all of the flawless fainting on orange carpet, the rerouting of lost ants to their proper sand-hill-homes, the recovery of myriad messages in bottles, floated like lazy boomerangs to the deep end of the pool.

Once I believed the never of can’t: of the unimaginable, of the impossible, of learning to read the words on the page, and not the never of won’t: of the unattempted, and too much hung-over self-sick soap opera fatigue.

Once I believed in teeth, in the vigorous carnivore rupture of meats, in robust slaughter for survival, not in the black and yellow on pink and red rot of self-destruction and midnight neglect.

Now I believe in fevers, in the sweaty ginger ale murmurs of canvas curtain ghosts while on the bedside table, the powder blows away.

Now I believe in Neptune, in pelting diamond rains encrusting the map, invisible under the azure but waiting to be scooped like penny candy from the core.

Now I believe in the lamentable value of risk, of bloodshot bareback rides to sheltered oblivion, phone ringing in pocket.

Now I believe in sleepy-eyed chicken pox, yawning and stretching against the trunk, sending the scorch to blossom blistery at the tips of the branches.

Now I believe in skin, in tender-tough mammal casing, here swelling blue to purple-yellow under covetous grip, there vining silver-pink boundary lines over fertile territory, then creasing papery-persistent over forgotten furrows on memorial brow.

So here’s to you late winter carnies, exhaling hot breath into the tungsten night, to you helpless hand-washers, your flipping of switches and your counting of cars. Here’s to you troubled troubadours, navigating the yellow line.

Here’s to you octogenarians, tearing into your last letters with your gentle brass knives. Here’s to you easel painters, sitting up on your stools, crying into your cadmium, to you printers of pages, stained with black ink.

Here’s to you New Guinea birds of paradise, your desperate displays of iridescent mettle, your depraved dances commissioned by the cosmos.

And here’s to you, the sickly sea. You mourn your bleeding bluefish and brace for the jelly choke. Even so, you linger at the funeral feast, keeping perfect rhythm.