hansel & gretel

the winds pink from my cheeks, i mean, my cheeks pink (from the), i mean, the trails we leave behind as we move, like the faint voluminous traces of snails, like crumbs dropped by betrayed children in the woods.

sometimes we resemble nothing more than palindromes, for all our purported asymmetry. all sudden reversions and revisions, all suddenly telescoping mosaics, kaleidoscopes of infinitely patterned forms. stuttering again and again back to old familiar themes, moments of regression.

each stem you trim short grows out again and again, seeking the shears of yr disapproval. pruning is another way of blessing - creating sharp borders from which meaning can unfold.

i could write a book on this stuff, he says - man, i could write a book on the things i seen.

in winter, things fall to pieces. sometimes the fall is more of a slow slide, a fading of edges, a whimper of a descent or dissolution. the instability of all these connecting forces, these ties we forge to shore ourselves up against the reminders of our own precarity, reminders which hover beyond the corners of our eyes.

in the winter, we close our eyes against the sting of the falling snow and jog blindly forward in search of warmth. (the soft ways bodies acquiesce to one another in the dark hours of morning.)