grace in a storm

And there you sit

in the miscellanea

of my life.

Once held so high

above others,

you were sure to fall.

You peer at me

from the jumble,

when I dare to look.

Amor vincit omnia

chants your ghost

            I'm the girl

with no past,        no future --

                 You

went looking,      found nothing --

 (pseudonym's a handy thing).

               Once,

I thought you'd found

             the complete body of work

(puny, malnourished thing that it was),

            and were horrified:

 such hard lines           on this waif

            who seems so soft.

                     But no --

nothing found, and        everything lost.

                 In the present:

Chicago Timelapse Project, Windy City Nights II

between the welt of my stocking and the curve of my thigh.

You live

between the number in my call history and my refusal to dial it.

You live

between the wide open sky of our past and the scorched earth of our present.

In every brightness, every shadow every triumph, every failure every kindness, every brutality --

You live.

Between the "not today" and the "maybe tomorrow"

"Oh!" exclaimed the girl. "O is round," replied the mother.

"Hey!" prefaced the girl. "Hay is for horses," corrected the mother.

"Always be yourself, Gracie" encouraged the mom.