The time of my end rushes
The time of my end rushes onward like a frozen east wind,
Dreary lapses of years tramping through the courtyard
of suppressed memories.
The din of a gong,
Mornings and nights fulfilling their duties,
Thumbs on temples, spirits taming spirits,
I don’t want to know why.
I was hungry for elementary bodies, always running
toward that home of light.
I used to do as the boats did and bob, tied down to wait
for glimpses of wider blue waters.
Glittering glaciers,
Photos of the possible,
But the ropes groaning remind me I’m bound.
Nowhere had my mind dwelt for some time.
Conscious, daily, of the blissful idea that this place
Would be in me forever, chained and hauled behind,
Even as my powers of walking increased
and I left the commonplace where it sat
Under the trees where my parents stacked their stones.
A fatal-eyed woman and a fitful man, knotted.
The time of my end rushes faster than I can walk,
I’ll never overcome it, but it will catch me from behind,
I’ll have an ordinary, predictable, freckled death
where my foolish timid hopes seep down
And the boat loosens and drifts,
And the blood will rush from my cheeks as I find my
own stone to stack and rejoin the place that clutched me.
Kevin Brennan is the author of six novels, including Parts Unknown (William Morrow/HarperCollins), Yesterday Road, and, most recently, Eternity Began Tomorrow. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Berkeley Fiction Review, Mid-American Review, Twin Pies, The Daily Drunk, Sledgehammer, Fictive Dream, Atlas and Alice, LEON Literary Review, MoonPark Review, Atticus Review, and others. A Best Microfiction 2022 nominee, he's also the editor of The Disappointed Housewife, a literary magazine for writers of offbeat and idiosyncratic fiction, poetry, and essays. Kevin lives with his wife in California's Sierra foothills.
Twitter: @kevinbrennan520 and @offbeatlit.