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There s(p)its in the back
of my mind’s off-duty cab,
a man who lives off
fragments of air, radio
silence his bane as
he eats intervals of black
static pulsing ash
between passionate shouts and
flat prayers, unaware
I am there with him, this pale
vagrant stealing thoughts
away, an ill-fated fare
tearing through my heart’s
side-streets, down the stark foothills
of dawn, where late-night’s
street-walking sombreness fades
to sobriety,
but not before consciousness
slips on its torn pall,
with face funerary and
fugitive, this man
who lives off fragments of air
breathes for me when I
dream, since in waking life I
am impaired by fear,
unable to take with me
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anyone to this
place where I bury my Self,
working to feed my
Muse, to whom I am promised,
a fickle wife who’s
jealous of my fame, shaming
me for wanting to
deceive her, for being to
some unknown but no
less palpable extent part
divine, she who knows
always before I do, my
intentions to rid
my thoughts of her presence, since
submission to one’s
talent is a victory
march into a tomb,
so I ask this man who lives
off fragments of air,
if downbeat of silence he
finds awareness, or
if my waking Self just lies
there, as he drives from
the comfort of his pilfered
vantage point (t)his soul’s
phantom chariot, making
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concentric my failed
attempts and his narrowing
path, if he can feel
my fear as my breath nears his
tongue, and why it is
he does not speak, not even
when just before I
rise, his destination and
mine appear, but both
obscure as one, why it is
my own putting on
of airs and airing of these
grievances fogs my
visions, but weeps nude fistfuls
of light, tears wiping
crystal clear his windshield eyes,
filling them with wet
resurrections of lost ones
once loved, departed
flesh running fluid like oiled
memories in old
mortuary mirrors, our
self-importance so
much smaller than it appears,
shades of night falling
reveal what masks fail to heal.
Jono Borden 