My story seemed as fulsome as real time could make it.
I saw storm fronts arrive bringing wind shifts on the flats.
I heard rustling in dark corners that I tried to enlighten, enliven.
There were conversations that I couldn’t forget, and now
they’ve grown gargantuan, I listened, I heard.
And the voice of Miley Cyrus wafted through the hall: was it a moan?
Why did her loss of love matter so much?
Maybe she projected herself in the melody,
wanted to become a moral or two.
Which is what we try to make of ourselves, don’t we?

And when the lawyers arrived, I felt like
a soldier in a portrait of Waterloo: so much to be comprehended,
all that running into the breach, some salutations offered,
then the breaths die away. Luckily, there were survivors,
or did I make that up too? Wasn’t there
a stenographer who made a record
so later we could examine the wreckage,
offer our critiques. Those lines
we shot across the conference room
were a sad cover for our grief that flooded the place.
At the end of the day, we just left. 

Yet, once outside we confronted surrounding heat,
swelling the air like a harsh idea filling the Earth,
and despite pillow talk or the private speech
I heard in my head, I never tried to stop it,
at least not much, not then.
And whether I ran the silly streets
or took leave to the coast,
I couldn’t escape it. For surprise,
on this planet, everything is connected to everything.
So, buckle up, strap on the strap-on,
we live on a globe.