Sometimes
in those quiet moments in-between
all that is and will be
I hear the sounds of battle.
I think
A hidden war rages
in places I cannot see
I sense my future-
The full scope of me-
dancing as Damocles
merry in all I cannot see
a hair’s breadth from the final release
of failure and farewell
but then the in-between ends.

Time begins again.
I look for my normalcy bias
if found, it carries me through
to the familiar ground
on which I frolic ageless in time

and if the war does rage,
surely it isn’t mine?

(An early a.m., half-excavated piece.)

I stood at Trevi Fountain
In younger skin
I flicked in a foreign-faced wish
Currency from a different place-
An unknown world.
I was a silly girl invoking petty fortune,
Forgotten as soon as the memory
Began sinking into the crystal waters
Racing resiliently over the stony terrain
I wished under a different name
As I raced towards today

That wish sank in silence,
In secret depths it laid
And I paid to bury the wish,
But not the wishmaking
I cannot recall the face of it,
Or know if it became, or sank away,
But I cannot lose the day
I wore my youth
To Trevi Fountain,
And fed its open mouth
With my foreign desires.

Perhaps in the watery grave
My wish remains
Or perhaps I’ve worn it
Home.