two julys

a lifespan in a poem

between two julys,

i’m living years by, withered and new,

mellowed and glued to reformation, binding

what proves left to grow and to erode and gravitate,

float to less abound and coast to flatness all at the same time,

and lining ambiguously to what i decide,

like definitions and their insincerity,

and finding what it means to choose;

-

between two julys i’ve found myself slipping,

not by tongues but speaking with a curl too familiar,

to a cheek i’ve felt before,

and i’m hard pressed (as such a phrase suggests) to try and fight it too intentionally,

as what a fight it would be, to wrestle with myself,

what coercion it would take to discipline the coves that warp my view,

the estuary i’ve humanized as mine;

-

between two julys i’ve followed,

as rigid as can be, the fleeting hesitations,

left to linger and live reflected

in the lowest lap of the glass,

essentially forgotten and having all but become permanent,

attached like my nose inflated, ricocheting,

celebrating dedication to the past,

with the evidence written across my face,

dismissed and unavoidable and love;

-

between two julys there’s none of the above,

in my forever fill-in-the-blank,

bookending balloons, quiet grass growing spoiled,

to my front yard wounds, mowing over quips and coils,

trips from and to

a newer form,

a yearning to be adorned through more than memory,

a mirror, an effort to live up to time,

empiric, reflected between two julys;

acd