Solstice 2020:persistence

Stillness like caramel
slips
dissolves
burnt
on tongue and swallow
feeling so much so
it’s yet to be
paint-spattered and weary.
Everything stands in for love
even death and seasons
for parts of love at least.

He stands listening to the rain
in the neighbourhood of your simile.
He is alarmed still at his invincibility
the charm of his own grin.
The poo Rorschach fooled him,
sometimes shit is just shit.
The overexamined life not worth extra—
genuine complacency costs
more than the petrochemical kind.
And anyway he’d rather walk.