Their arms, almost touching, but not. Made in a factory of hands and chains,
unholy plinths furnished and built to tender our long vowels. Taller than us,
and standing to quell the worry of having nothing to say, if only for the weather,
the shopkeeper’s favorite topic. Wired through the fields, where haystacks are yellow
as newly sharpened school pencils. Now waiting to channel our instruments,
our proxy of voices. Our chorus of gossip taking shape in the chatter of afternoon sun.
As if conductors in a symphony, because the music to our language holds
the long maps to the fossils, bone to bone, house to house. Even the birds are wearing
their darkened silhouettes, outlining the sky where long distances go
to be alone. Our glyphs hanging on the laundry line of clouds,
as if the divine was burrowed inside our need to speak—Greet the day,
kick up the volume, take umbrage, and really listen to someone’s
heart leaping into chords—words thrust first, between a string and a cup.
