Waltzing on the Antipode
by D O Mckimm
[ poetry - september 09 ]
Guide; my long footsteps, longer along the track.
Ghost-train; my soles lack the sun's proof - the shortest
Proof gives the time. I rest, and now turn my back
On trees; they fall to spindle and so, attest.
I draw a hair's breadth, which on high trapeze deigns
To inflate and strain a picked pocket with air.
My lung - so brutal, and truant with rhyme, remains
Flat. Exhale, an off key chime; and from it wear
The black knuckles of dissonant chords which cause
A fissure in that whitened sky. Until, once
Upon a distant bough the antipodes entwine, groves
Turn a twisted tangerine and the final waltz
Tolls within the peach tongue of that dome,
And, spills, inevitably, over with age - dark and, alone.
