conspire

 

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