Interlude (29)

Parking this poem here as Part 28.1. It is from September 2018. I can remember the angst from that time, though it all got channelled into something very positive a few months later. Maybe we deliberately leave poems as memory markers…for later. For now. Here’s the poem, unedited! The original post is here.

The Way It Works, Or Doesn’t

the way it works, or doesn’t,
one piece of evidence points to another, on and on, even as the search
changes and the seeker
becomes another person, then another;
but not all things are clues, some things just are,
they don’t say anything, won’t go anywhere,
your breath on my skin was not a portent, but I didn’t know that until later,
until it was too late to stop moving,
until it was too late to stop crying;
some things we take along with us, half carrying, half dragging,
their screams incoherent, their eyes streaming, bright like dying stars,
by the time I realised I had found myself,
by the time I figured out why there were no footprints to follow,
by the time I came back to where I began,
where it began,
my head was pounding,
there were welts on my soul, the shape of your fingers,
something you had said was still a bleeding wound;
your walking away was not a sign,
not a symptom of an incoming deluge,
my clothes were wet,
there was water in my shoes,
there were no clues, not even rain,
not even a ripple,
some things just are,
some days, it doesn’t work,
we cannot walk on water.