Intermittent raindrops tap an unsteady rhythm on the skylight, pulling my focus to the grey expanse, where it lazes and melds, unveiling…

My bones are old, some days they chant war songs and steel instead of splinter, other times they hum vesper light and radiate ancestor guidance, lately they constant an unearthly echo of language absent from tongues for centuries…

I’m unheard of, with peddles engaged and released, my fingers in play, my voice a whisper exhaling incantations in phantom rings, as the shadows existing beneath the same roof, shift and shape in a melodious dance, their presence a comfort when life proves to wear heavier than their afterlife…

We conduct ourselves as strangers in all hours, but three, where a singular tear falls upon the column and bow of my lip, a baptism of virus upon host, he can’t help himself, because god goes where he wants, and I taste his apology…

I’m aware daily of the ache that’s wracked my body, and of the hurt that reminds my heart to win, and that it’s when I’m lost to the odyssey that my being happens upon the most beauty.

E. A. O'Connell. February 7, 2022.