Something About Cosmic Mercy

Letters pour forth from the branches of unending banyan surrounding a faraway schoolhouse. All my shades in fragments and clipped beaks, the sentences are coming almost by accident now. I pour another glass, and another, and carry the moisturizer on my way to the bathroom to brush my teeth. On and off in a glowing green, this is some new world they’ve told us about. Aged in bourbon, cracked in coffee bean. Bananas of Egypt or Belize, tables sold across the country, irritants from all sides; it’s not you or me or anyone else, it’s all and none of us. Press, hold, play, fold, counter, riddle, rooftop, halt. Sing them, sing the phrases back: You like the cardinals I smile for when they flutter by, do you? Then smile again, smile the way I remember you from days not yet had.