Time is a many-winged duck.

The plant that has grown out of control
was a box that's a lie,
and the box is crept over a thousandfold
by the tendrils and bines,

the duck picking over its bones and tissues,
the duck quivering and abhorrent,
the duck slobbering.

Time is a cashew on a cashew tree.

Time takes offense to the notion of its own definition;
instead it bites,
it gnaws,
it squirms into and out of your notion
as if to signal accepting disdain.

It is time which opens the door,
and which closes it on the way in or out.

Trimmings of an old tree
in overwrought grasses
and children's feet are playing under it.

To wit, the sucker's gambit:
a search for that which,
never lost,
acquiesces to the game.

It searches for you.



"It was less than an hour," she said.

"What was?"

"Everything."