Hebe Kearney

yes i am about to say this again
// i apologize //
but the way time glides
seamlessly is anathema to me
like so many simple things.

i want to pick ripe fruit only
and keep it unrotten in a ceramic bowl forever,
not sagging or curled, dehydrated with white fuzz.
i want // everything // to stay // exactly // the same.

but when it comes down to it, i know,
i will see you tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow
because everything // does // stay exactly the same
until it violently doesn't and breaks like a wave,
transferring its energy.

i want to be untethered, bodiless,
and lose hours to that clear, irrepressible sky –
the only kind of acceptable loss.

but it's true – nothing is ever // gone // gone.
but fuck me if it doesn't feel like it!

i even mourn winter
when all the foolish little blossoms show their frilly heads
and the plants shoot out vulnerable green,
so offensively impermanent

as the clocks tick forward and time disrobes,
casting aside her drapery, looking like aphrodite
so evil beautiful and with her hands knocked off,
so she can't even weave anymore.

which is why // she // is like this,
so rugged unpredictable and silly,
i grapple with her always
until suddenly i won't anymore
and all the threads will hang loose
like an unfinished tapestry
like a memory.