(t)here, (t)here

from so far away, sweet music lopes toward you and gently lifts your human heart. the way a mischievous scent unfurls one long, soft index finger beneath a cartoon snout, and raises it, just so, with a stroke

so the mind forgets itself. the way a candle, flagging so tiny in a high window, will give its heart to yours. and a child, nose smushed against the glass, will flutter your pulse. and in a photograph, your joyous face will inspire joy, and your selfishness will not go unseen, and your ugliness, dear friend, remains ugly, no matter the years that have passed between the instant that it gripped your features from inside to rearrange them, like a car accident mangles a body, and the instant you are seen reflected in this perfect slate of ice, cold to the touch. and the friend, so interested in your words, is so interested in your words; and the grass so richly textured i can stuff handfuls in my mouth like cotton candy. the woman with three fingers to her mouth is true. judgment day is not so far away—for, viewed in a window high above as my predictable life, twenty years from today, playing across a TV screen, it would lend like a tiny candle would its miserable heart for me to try. i will give it back quickly and with a furtive shame.

no, i am saying that even our smallest sailor, wee down feather lullaby puff, who now floats, dreaming, in such slow turns until he flattens to my computer screen is somebody's baby. i can imagine him cooing himself asleep after launching into this world.

there is no hiding in this world and when one sees their own reflection rainbowed inside an oily puddle we are not double the distance but everything is right here, all the time, touching you soft underneath your chin—long unfurled finger, poisonous with warm malice or pumping with the most honest magic wish.