Too soon
the earth lost its
grip on her;
too soon she
slipped into the timeless
deep. We are left
munching stale biscuits
in heaps after a feast.
The fire glows low;
you and I knew it
would emerge now,
this sentient surreal;
smoke chokes us
up, gets in
our eyes.
Before us she walked
through the waterfall.
That’s all.
They tell him, “Chuck, you’re getting too old
for this nonsense.” But,” he says, “metaphysics
are all I have to fall back on. That and the back-taxes from
last years royalties.” “Um, dude, that’s a debit, not a credit.”
“Precisely, that’s my point. I’m epistemologically untenable,
to sprout regaling through my veins, limbs, and marrow,
and make of me a circus freak, but a merry one.”
“But your declining years, and expanding waistline…”
“You have to trust me on this. When I was a wee lad -
tooting in the pond with the ducks and the blondes -
I thought there was more to life than this. Now I realize, there
is only THIS…” Chucks opens his hands to reveal a mirrorlike
point of light that expands to include his, their, mine, and your
consciousness. In a flash it fans out the the extremeties of
the cosmos, and disappears, leaving Chuck holding a fig leaf,
standing in front of busts of Meriwether Lewis, and Ellen
Denegeres.