The Center Isn’t Holding
The center is not holding
despite the double gloved hands of latex
trying to the keep the falling pieces in place
before the bottom goes out
It may have never existed
only us on the outskirts of whatever outskirts remained the last time,
fending off that which comes sauntering,
slouching toward our promised land
and this time we cannot see it
We chew on the babel stones that settled this path
underneath our masks
behind screens
and we spit past them
grinding confusion into teeth, into air,
between families in the bread lines.
The Second Coming was the return of the Lost Generation.
Younger. No son of a governor.
The Holy Innocents said their goodbyes through windowpanes.
Older. Praying to spit once more, to hold their children’s faces, to take in the breath for laughter instead of an exhale into the grave
And my eye has pulsed a twitch for two weeks or seven months
and though I have not picked up a pen, the skin on my hands will tell the story
God forbid I can’t take the air for it myself
Sometimes I’ll lay on my back in the yard
Ignoring the sailor’s advice to calm the rocking world
And it will sway and I will sway with it
The center is not holding
And here I still remain.
