Instead of Losing

Anyone, growing up in a space you hadn't used yet

would've done the same: bother the family's bickering

to head straight into the channel. My, those times

crackled near about us, from sickly melodrama

instead of losing, and the odd confusion...confusion.

I thought of it then, and in the mountains.

During the day we perforated the eponymous city limits

and then some. No one knew all about us

but some knew plenty. It was time to leave that town

for an empty drawer

into which they sailed. Some of the eleven thousand

virgins were getting queasy. I say, stop the ship!

No can do. Here come the bald arbiters

with their eyes on chains, just so, like glasses.

Heck, it's only a muskrat

that's seen better years, when things were medieval

and gold...

So you people in the front,

leave. You see them. And you understand it all.

It doesn't end, night's sorcery notwithstanding.

Would you have preferred to be a grownup in earlier times

than the child can contain or imagine?

Or is right now the answer—you know, the radio

we heard news on late at night,

our checkered fortunes so pretty.

Here's your ton of plumes, and your Red Seal Records.

The whole embrace.