At the C ine

Situation. You loop the thread of it, wrap it ‘round the belly of a problem and a path, pitching at a cline Desire against Necessity and that’s how it starts.

Or is it hesitation marks, shading for what is— may be, will be with a bit and a lotta—well, a hue and a touch just shy of sardonic. Ignition: mile zero. Twilight hours and the remnants of sweet-singed Café Bustelo.

Someday—maybe—the scrawlings of one, two— three a.m. become the master blueprint; full calcium beams and crude carving of a being whose face is in need of defining lines, and Raw Something.

It spits out too many pages.

One, two— Three-hundred thousand words that meant everything until they were dead to me as the finale of every children’s show— better left unsaid for fear of ruining Sentiment or truth or principle or language entirely.

They couldn’t mold bones or create shape never-before-seen. Could only assume some preexisting arrangement of someone else’s innovation: a first-form sketch.

And that’s what it’s like to love and hate and forgive and soldier one’s own hands in equal measure. That’s what it’s like to start from first position: unravel the thread. Breathe. Situation. Poetry 33