Snail Slog
We’ve been wrested from the others
in a sudden moment,
unprepared, unshriven, as though
the mythic Rapture has come,
and most have risen into eternity,
while we, the left behind, now wander house and days,
avoiding touch
like magnets turned in fear.
Words thin, days flatten,
tempers burst and fizzle.
Hours plod like plough horses,
and the days,
those former tumbleweeds of bounding time,
come to rest in empty fields.
We lie, spatchcocked, on couches,
basting in possibility,
then decide to build strength
with just a small doze
before searching for something
new to do.
The sun stays high,
hours to go before we slip
between the sheets for yet another dream-
distracting version of day’s alter ego.
We search for auguries in clouds,
read the scatter of stones, signs
that surely a merciful immanence will soon
wave a wand and turn it all to loess,
loose and drifting
toward some vague reward
for our tireless tenacity and cussed perseverance.
Nothing changes.
Kirsten Morgan is a poet who lives in Golden.