These days

myth

is what

I’m thinking

with

each object

more than happenstance

each action

steeped in consequence

nothing out of place

as it has ever been so

that my life has been

of mythological proportions

from where I’m standing

a reluctant

would-be bard

more beautiful than I’d have hoped

for beauty

in myth

always comes at a price

or with a vice

as it, here, amply has –

a cloak

behind which

something wild

and ugly hides

with hooves under skirts

and flesh to be

preened and

pickled

and a part

ever betrothed to

the devil in disguise

but last night

standing at a quarter past

the chimes of midnight

over the porcelain sink

wild-eyed

hands I didn’t recognize

holding scissors flashing

with fluorescent light

as my very mane

slipped clear instructions

and explanations

into my brain

(hair talks –

all things do,

if you know how to listen)

“the time has come

for us to part ways,

to cut the ties

with darker days”

you shouldn’t

need hair to speak twice.

the locks

that chained me

to former phases

the only continuous

knowable part

of me

this identity

that I could make you see

and only see

so behind I could wilt into the

safe unseen

hair might regrow

but it’s not the same hair

hasn’t absorbed the same

smokes

and scents

and salts

and scenes

from the same

cities and towns

and rivers and seas

in the same exact hairline

I will never regrow that hair

I will never relive that time

but in myth

when things speak

you shouldn’t have them speak twice

so with scissors

now a butcher’s knife

I hocked two clean

bloody blows to

two pig’s tails

squealed with delight

for the doing of

the thing that is

unquestionably right

I’m forever

chasing that

choiceless choice

these days, all the more –

listening

to that inner voice

that speaks once, and no more

because I can give myself over to that.

to the soft sweet oatmeal ease of the inevitable

choosing the chosen

doing the done

as the scissors now become

a blunt axe

glinting in the sun

and I offer my innocent hands

to the one who

sold me to my destiny

and it’s easy

as milk and honey

swift

sharp

clean

the relief

of accepting the fate

that is meant

standing open

in softness for love

not against

in the crystalline clarity

and arrow precision

of taking action

without making decision.

in these strange times

this, my loves,

is my prayer –

that our ears

and eyes

and hearts might

open

everywhere

and that

as we go

where we’re going

we choose to

waltz with our

not-knowing

there.