conspire (from the trial)
exhibit 8
upstairs
I’ve been upstairs
climbing
it’s always uphill through locked doors
through the hatch into that cluttered
space
that shipwreck of our scuppered lives
a deep-sea diver in murky depths
fed on recycled oxygen shallow breaths
sorting out the past that didn’t pass go
the
zero-
sum games and me the boot the black shoe
finding missing pieces that do not fit
the puzzles
we put together nostalgia wrapped
in webs and dust the air thin and thick
with motes unsung notes from our songs nuzzled
by polypoid fingers the rich and the strange
the telling of the
right and the wrongs
the tide’s wrath slow erosion the sea change
seen from beneath the
waves through nacreous eyes
the weight of all
that then buried full fathom five
no flag flies and I return to the
surface too soon
now an astronaut on a windless
weightless moon
