William Doreski

Competing Scriptures

Have you seen a dragonfly
this summer? Lacking that quick
iridescence, the season feels 
unfinished, a room without 
pictures on the walls. Drought
may account for the absence,
or the shock of radio waves,
or sinister underground noises,
or the machinations of thick
old men in government plotting
to erase competing scriptures.

Today we have to face the baldness
of our tires, the depletion
of our liquor supply, the silence
where cicadas used to chirr.
Is this the gradual martyrdom
we promised each other and ourselves?
Is this the grinding of slow gears
we observed rusting beside
the railroad in North Cambridge
where Eliot heard street pianos
tinkling in the cusp of memory?

Dragonflies, damselflies, fireflies.
They shaped the summer to their will,
so now it’s slack as a paper bag:
an empty paper bag left
in a room without pictures
on the walls. We complete ourselves,
phrase by phrase, severing heads
as we go. Lashing more fiercely
than the wind of thunderstorms,
our losses punish and degrade
the environment, sculpting us
in caricature, our features warped
and our flowers drooping on stems
too ambitious to support them.

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