like an island with the sea roiling all around
upon a lonely mountaintop with the smoke and the clouds drifting below
the sign says:
you are free to dance within the painted lines
romp around naked and drunk and delirious
within the pre-apportioned space
and it is not the long arm of the Law
or the Commandments of God
but the hard iron will of Mother Nature
that keeps you bound to this constrained space
looking back upon the time passed
the chronology slowing hardening like newly set concrete
mulling over the decisions and indecisions of yesterday
remembering the nights lying in bed pondering destiny
waking from nightmares shrieking
in a cold sweat
as you dream that Fate pushes you over the precipice
and the answer to every question increasingly becomes
it does not matter
and nothing would have changed
and the frettings and the unease of traipsing that thin line
between disaster and stagnation
(each in some weird way
a synonym for death)
becoming nothing more than the regular red line on a map
representing your itinerary
with well-spaced fuel stops along the way
as you sit in line before the toll booth
each car admitted representing something like an eon of waiting
you cannot go anywhere
not backward certainly, but neither forward
not until the appointed hour
which comes like a thief stealing in the night