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Fermata

You are a sustained landscape
one that changes only when you smile or frown,
        a fermata, an endless note
something akin to love strung-out,
pulled thin
until it vibrates at the same tone
as does love,            but

not deep,
just the tension of a chord made to sing
as a vibration
upon an unvarying reiterative.

The landscape is in you,
the one holds the other in place.
it forms your stance and mien. From a distance
of years
I see you smile or frown, wave or turn your back
        from my outreaching arms.

The sounding wire is continuous,
only those minor wincing fractals
upon lips,
the corners of your eyes,
the bandwidth of a memory never changing.

The landscape does not build a thing,
not a brick or a leaf      just
this constriction in my throat while I echo
the atonality of a mood,

and given the small modulations, your perpetual
disengagement,
and my need for this vision to change
even so, am I kept listening
to this                 
        ever  e x t e n d i n g
minimalistic curtain-call,
a thralldom
to a reenactment that draws near to love
                        while rebounding away.

Copyright © Eric Ashford

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