The Distance That Becomes Us

now the contrition waits. patient nomads in the desert of conceit.

a soft collar around the neck of when. still it chafes.

collectors of intimacy against the brevity of trust. 

now we are quiet. our voices embargoed by the bureaucracy of flesh.

islands born of the flood. 

windmills titled a little too far.

embellished by time. revised by grief. 

orphans adrift in the waning colors of how.

relentlessly steering this sinking ark.