Many see a flutterby when they look into this 

omniscience I see as a skinniness too densely drawn 

or a mystery unhinged by its own symmetry, a twinning 

I think of as a listener that thinks along 

with me, fused in a tweed, a red herringbone 

weave in the dazzling darkness 

and bleached afterness some see 

as a necklace of brilliants curved in gift. As if! 

A color visible only in ultraviolet 

light or a source beyond mathematics I think 

of as a second self, an underhum. Or thought. Till I saw 

innocence tortured by a force 

beyond kindness, an unconditional indifference 

or wick for wickedness that wanted trauma dolls. 

I tell this as a clock tells time but telling can't diminish it 

as clocks can't dwindle time. Am I still alive? 

Birds that sing behind a waterfall, horses kneeling 

Christmas Eve are what others see in what I see 

as us delivered up to this chill that searches me.

Copyright � 2013 by Alice Fulton. Used with permission of the author.