nathanael.ink

time is fingers between fingers
locked in a praying fist
one hand is the present moment
the other is experience

consciousness is a finger trap
between all the fingers all at once
so that what should always have been separate
we know, for us, never is

memory is a stencil print
on three pounds of fatty roads
we can always run the traffic back
through resulting craggy molds

but we are winter and harsh weather
in our fight to have it back
and — have what back? after all,
walking the fatty paths
was never ‘what we had’

what we had was always fingers between fingers
wishing to be separate
it was palms sharing sweat and us unable to tell the difference
between the present moment
and our experience of it