And remains
You could hear it, the echo of each in that fleet of arks, each meaning to save in the coming storm, but the rain did not come. Only this flood of arks, and the small ones crushed beneath the weight of them. Then there were arks at the speed of sound and now approaching light, the rate at which the saving reaches the cycle of completion, finally and fully invisible. Tell me, angel, do you still breathe under there? I want to hear you.
And the numbers now.
Will this what then not let itself be counted,
what when it was not permitted any stop?
I walked on limbs while sorting them:
this, and then this, and so on, what
passes for mind an organizing principle.
Unless this flesh is made of minutes
would you save it? I meant to answer.
Current, fly through me.
You must be time.
Is this the hour, then?
Am I?
A reunion.
I found you where we were children, and you found a way to bend a certain recipe toward the collection crowding my pockets, slowing my chase. In surrender, I removed the lot of it in pieces and placed each on the table. Tell me, love, I asked you. What is it?
You took a stamp and sewed it to your shirt, held a button to your reflection, and the shard of a mirror you pressed into an album to save the memory of someone looking back. We chased to catch ourselves back to running from what teased our terrors, tempting catch me! and you can’t!
I feared the years would fell me first, but you did, and from the rest of what is saved if you wait I can still make you a meal and we will raise a glass to the hour of these signs, from this shelter of broken time.
