A Conversation

The result of a text message conversation between Zachary Stansell and me.

Y: One stingray swam below the forgotten tressle
because prehaps
everyone else drove over
newer roads

     M: The exoskeletal sky has
     been draining itself all
     day, moving like a robust
     stingray over the valley
     towns

Y: Bluegreen air blows
beneath the broken
bridge, my bones in
repose basking in, slowly
bleaching in the stinging
rays

     M: The gray mountains
     reach out to me,
     haphazard rays stung by
     snowdrifts, fingers of
     pitch and dirt expanding
     upon the horizon

Y: Failed dreams dreamt in
the time of steam now
abide as vacuous
crustations, waystations
for migrations of ever
searching seabirds.

     M: Ideas, drifting legions
     of habit, secret
     negotiations between
     silenced seasons, sprout
     thru the matted topsoil
     of the inverted
     landscape around me

Y: Thing is, these lines bend
under the wait of time,
but the eye cannot spy
seasonal shifts, if the
shifting does not slip

     M: Words are time and time
     is an aging system
     simulating four seasons,
     an expectant module
     that tells us how to say
     what we see

Y: I leave the bridge
somewhat higher than I
could have climbed, I will
find the ground another
time.

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