Failure to Exist

The cloud casts a shadow on the mountain. 

A sentence comes like code, long after

the image, which is nothing but itself.

Itself, the more deeply coded message. 

The shadow is the purple of brown, 

it is flat—or does the shadow

have mountain surface? Is it anything

at all, or depthless, like grief.

Who would I be grateful to? 

In the wide empty valley of 

my youth, I think up a prayer

and what I wish for, I fear. 

Just fear what you wish for,

little self, large shadow, 

in your skyblue confession booth. 

You can’t make this better.