Parataxis

I was considering this particular slice of history and its shadow—an empire and her sons and their million graves, war and death and glory and pageantry—all malleated down to a death mask of the cancer-laden man who tended a cold, damp garden on a little-known island sometimes called Saint Helena, other times called nothing at all.

There sits a gray house with arsenic wallpaper, termites busying themselves in the beams and rafters. Out the east window, wildflowers poke sporadically through the fog. An unused billiards table collects dust.

On windswept plains robed in years, giants become small while their footsteps stretch the world.

Busy

all the days of sun went

hand in hand

out the west door to

the garden

gone

before he chanced to offer

tea

Crest

all her little

folds

became weathered pages

just d a n c i n g under

fingers

in warm morning sun

and then

welcomed shadow