Temple

I was a lock.
Several keys worked.

So murmured transcendence
(caught fingering the cloaks of those gathered to feel
a healer's smooth interior).

Zero bound, happy as trash.

To slip then
out past the peeling sill
where the lost whims come tapping back.

Over tea—
more talk of detachment.

Some rouged-over alignment spills,
the glow's edge dimming,
until one sees just how
a loving obscurity
pilots the sparrow's recovery.

And the frivolous column takes a bullet.

All in the haze of rank presence.

Limber now in the new air,
I shift even further from heroics.

Needles pour from the pines
lining the long drive of sorrow's estate.
They spiral, cut
through the why and the massage

fleeing once promised…

Still, the flow, the beveled flash, the song—

Here at the darker end of the bridge.