Permutations

the blood has turned to red sand I look at the shape of my hands and wonder about the day when they, too, will revert back to the red sands I marched upon as a youth on the table the grapes shine with the afternoon sun and shadows of the day draw long and indistinct as I look for some semblance of the shadow that was mine it's not that I'm dying it's that everyone is dying the graveyard is full of plastic bags caught in the trees fluttering a song in the breeze the skeletons wearing rags the crust of the earth yawns, simpers content to be so saturated with the radiation from our fragmented thoughts that spill forth and spend not a nanosecond waiting for a response centripetal force has drawn me here and as I draw in resembling an empyrean tortoise I feel the oxygen that was once used by someone I loved near the event horizon now inflating my lobes cold tea for made from shade trees the apex of the womb has moved to an invisible location that's on a precise point upon a tangled glove-compartment map the road to higher skies I suppose you may mystify yourself in the wake of a near collision as everything coils up around your talus the pleasantries emanating from your lips meant something in a parallel universe a little girl wants her ball back and the dogs say come and try to get it their hunger makes them piercing observers the sand needs more red today as far as they're concerned