NONE OF WHAT WE KNOW

Desire is delay and is painful. Liberties

are worth taking without telling.

What’s missing matters.

And an absence can easily go unseen.

Extend any perplexity into time and you may

end up with a partridge in a pear tree.

Despite the subtle meaning of things,

syllables will still be there to say

and less than scintillating facts about cities and rivers

will continue to pepper the pages of books.

Ungulates will lumber upon the earth and pigeons, 
like always, will make great bombardiers.

And hands, when they gesture,

will only tell part of the story.

The figure approaching out of the oasis

may just be a sailor once lost at sea.

None of what we know is a fait accompli

or an anomaly that can end a primrose conversation.

Regardless of our native tongue

or the lack of spice in our pastor’s homilies

or the puff and predictions

from a detective’s calabash,

there is more mystery

between what we perceive and what we imagine

than any cliché can contrive.