Alphabet of Days (17)

17.

Questions of Tense


When I dance – and my fingers,
just now, are dancing along
the keyboard’s black, raised letters –
is it now or some other time,
as if to say procrastination is
the rubric? And when I speak,
the story follows my hands –
like the Noh. Or do my hands
follow my tongue? – I can never
be certain of that truth. After all,
the universe is a long ocean of
silence that surely dances in its
own darkness when no one is
paying attention. So who am I
to say no to this dancing, no
to these words, spreading, one
letter at a time, across a wall
of white, to begin the story
that you speak aloud in some
future perfect progressive?
One day I will get it right.
But it’s late. From the corner
by the window, the heater blows
against the death of winter.
On the table, Refusing Heaven.
Nothing is what it seems.
Nothing is what it seems.