Fugue

There was rain in the desert
when chattering thorns and crooked teeth
parted to talk about the last time
we went to see the ocean.
(Or that we never made it there in the first place.)
Too many cold days make up the stretch
between this world and that shadow;
that echo, that infernal, eternal ivory-stained edifice
where
going once, going twice,
three times,
soul-
(Or whatever we call it these days.)
all of those cold days are inchworms
just wriggling spendthrifts
digging through the guts of the world.

That rain turned to ice as it hit the sand
and the wheels turned and turned
digging deep, deep, deep
down into the aching flesh of soil
as we tried to pull ourselves out.
Maybe we did in our own separate ways,
going our own separate ways,
and spending our hard-won separate days
that neither of us
could imagine that we would have had
when we started driving through the ragged sand
(varying amounts based on state of sobriety, naturally)
a thousand years ago.

The car stalled somewhere south of nowhere.
We left the keys
and walked in opposite directions
looking for gas, a ride, a tow, whatever.
Did either notice how far we’d walked
away from vows and oaths and promises;
we would need passports to see how far
the other had gotten.
And the days had gotten too cold for travel
and the endless empty road had become
a vacant mole hill which was perceived a mountain
that made the slightest insurmountable.

Those wriggling inchworm days came digging down
and buried themselves in our skin,
knitting and stitching and twisting deeper
until we were tethered so tight
that there was little to be done to escape.
The car had stalled;
the days were too cold;
the excuses became too hard to break;
(as they often do)
and finally, there was little left
save our endless numbered days
marching away in unison
under those soft beats of rain
that chilled, shiver-skin, left void,
with no road left to follow back.