Dominoes

February 24

DOMINOES




What happens to the dominoes that do not fall, the show cut short by my sobriety? The tiles stand front to back; the least foul respiration will send them to their preordained destination. I hold my breath as I glance over the display of generations. The design is set. Painstaking patterns lain with meticulous, ingenious deft. Skill for falling, laying waste. Sad pictures told and retold in speedy drops. The rhythmic fall of dominoes turning eight blocks to a corner. Direction shifts but the descending continues. I can not occupy this ground. I must not upset the arrangement. I can not clear it from this world. I must walk away from the upright mosaic, a flower waiting to bloom with destruction. I have to move. Climb the steep slopes. Vertical life, leaving the tumbling destruction for Yet. Grasping the sides of the cliffs, I haul myself off the tableland, a place set for a show of lying down. I build my strength and keep off the well-known flats. This is a life apart. The game is there if I return. It is a game no one can win.


Carry yourself.