Carapace

Don’t talk about how I have ever come back;

I did not want this new destination.

You don’t recover, you don’t return

because everything has changed.

It’s not correct to look at preparation

for something so quickened and strange.

And if a deity is close to hand

then grasp at them with gasping grip.

Whatever comforts, in its turn

reveals itself or sidles off.

And what is left is left unfixed

surveying the broken stuff.

The locus reasserts itself

and bundles you forward again

through forests petrified and burned

and senses all deranged;

you build a carapace once more

that reassures. A cage.

Trapped here to always nod and smile,

receiving heartfelt love.

A blurred and desperate attempt

to reconstruct yourself.

An hour, a day, a week, a month

go by in a curdling spell.

All movement is outside; the dullness within

won’t sharpen and burnish away.

No whetstone to re-keen,

no steel to spike sparks.

Spluttering and swept ever further awry

from an anchor cast loose in the dark.