Rain-washed city at night I welcome you. Empty streets and silent skies fall into step. Green grow the shadow trees. Beneath your leaves, I untether my fears, not even knowing if it’s safe. It might not matter.

Morning yawns open, its breath dry and breezy, this heat island cooled for now. Scudded clouds on blue, white shreds of a humid shroud shrugged off. Suspend seeking sustenance to gaze on bareness before you. I always see(k) it.

Distance equals rate times time plagues time travelers and distance runners. How far outside the circle I stand. Is it distance or time that matters. I can never get that straight. Distance being relative, for some meaning time. I hate math.

Twist the word wrapper at the ends of meaning like hard candy in cellophane. Suck it down to syrup, feel the rush. Spit back at the spitting sky, for its taunts fall on us with no reason. Stretch your hand out, fail to pass it through the clouds. These best things remain out of reach. What we have are objects on the ground. What we have feels arbitrary. I don’t want it.

Thoughts control, alter our actions. I sung that once. In youth we state the obvious. Of course they control; of course they alter actions. What did I know. I was a crippled distance runner. I was a failed time traveler. I was standing in the rain, spitting, waiting for the morning, candy melting on my tongue. One day dawn broke.

And now there is this. An equation to tinker with, variables to solder: a space behind me to fashion into organs of my own truth.