Fates

As if the fates
had spun me into
one bare fibre, invisible
except in a slim moment
of angled sunlight in which
I saw the future.

As if whatever
was to come had been
bound to heaven by its light,
or, by darkness and distance,
rendered so impenetrable
that I was left, reeling
on the edge of possibility.

As if I had
pulled at a thread of sky
and felt the hours unravel.

In the dying of the day,
in the descending cage of night,
I felt the stars pierce my heart
with their tiny daggered light
and I too fell to earth
like a wounded bird.

© BH, 2023

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Long time coming, this one. Originally titled, Clotho, Lachesis, Atropos, I struggled with the heavy classical allusion. Maybe I think they sound too grandiose. So I abandoned them. But that was what had been in my mind.

In the end, it’s about futures and ineffabilities. And our incessant vulnerability.