The Plot

Who knows, really?

For every day I move through summer air easy as smoke,

there is another where I am weighted with mild despair,

as if the sacks of gravel stooping my shoulders were real.

I may well be moving within the memory of another,

employed as an extra in his recurring dreams.

I want to be a bone in the body of something

larger. An animal snuffling and panting

as they drag it from the woods, strips of muscle tensing beautifully

even as its limbs tear at the ropes.