a correlated graph of constellations

he leans up against the wall and surveys the surroundings. people pass in unconscious stream of thought and they don't even know where they're headed. he looks around the square and waits for someone to share a fleeting glance with but it never comes. back at the hotel room he pours himself into a chair by the bedside and sips from his reserve of nostalgic feeling. warmed and inept at picking himself up out of his distress he flips on the television and changes the channel to bars and tone and, in the same way an olympic diver leaps headfirst into the deep, he entrenches himself in his latest identity crisis.

two days from now a young boy will walk into a general store in the midwest. he will ask for a pack of gummy bears and a bottle of pop. the man at the register tells the boy that it will be three seventy-five. the boy offers up four one dollar bills and receives his quarter change just like every other day. outside of the general store a man and a woman argue over directions. they don't know where they're headed. the sun offers no help.

back in the past, before the boy and the commotion, major williams wants to push further into the heart of enemy territory. his soldiers are tired and hungry and the weather has had them wrapped around its finger for days now. but the major insists. thirty minutes later an explosion to the east sounds out like a chorus of elephants. push ahead, cries the major, push ahead.

i write by flylight in deep woods past the river and bridge and the hanging, hollow trees while the wind wonders where the moon hid on this night.