from Blackwater Quartet, selection 85

My Responsibilities

I grew fond of little ecstasies,

the gravel-crunch of them comforting

and the trippy colour flashes pulping days,

at first nothing, then reconciled to shape from memory—

not mine, but a memory elsewhere.

In time, itself a consequence

of bolting energies,

I learned to step carefully along

the sliding scale of proof and solace.

Other worlds appeared, chinks of amethyst shale,

shiny particles, waves, glinty squawk and blather.

Life became difficult.

The universal fizz required my whole attention,

but what could I say?

What would anyone have said?