Postcard 155

And what will I feel?

You will feel that sharp dropping longing replaced by empty anxiety

Like a man with his last match, you will feel the wet fear of cold

and then the easy warmth of immersion

You will feel the firmament slip away like parents of a sleeping child

move down to sipping whiskey and warm rooms -- the resting of a smaller world

You will feel your own moments gently stripped away like scales

and you will see them dance irridescent as wind shaped rain across the face of big waters

You will feel thirstily drunk from by every single thing

and you will feel your shores recede

You will feel in the fingers that you call your own

the fine thread pull-through of pain unstitched from pleasure

You will feel the friction heat of steady spindled spool
-- smooth wood on spinning wood -- gathering and binding wool
each bunch of fibers a certain sheep's own dirt and oily lanolin
The thread a flock distilled

You will feel fear. You will feel fear
and you will feel the centrifuge about which it spins
you will feel the hole which pulls you through