Sedimentary

I am a year of human
fabricated time older today.
I ride Dickinson’s chariot
through time. Death chases
me; he is clever.

Life and Death balloons
meet in the air and pop
with scraps floating down
into democracy’s green grass.

We are all nothing but chariots,
nothing but floating balloons
colored and categorized
and judged by the sky
which is blue, which is blue.

Time and gravity alike
are raping me of my dynamic
flesh. Time is a clever drowsing
pill, a fraternity party jungle
juice numb for this fossiled girl.

And I am alone now in my fossil,
his imprint washed away like
so many years of erosion,
like so much friction.

I call this day of my birth
in comparable time,
this jazz silhouette,

birthday blues.