Not alone, not alone, not alone. Where
there is an and, we follow it. Or they, if
you’re on the outside. And means more
than one and more than one means not
alone,  not  alone.  This  is  the  most
municipal, but not a metaphor. And
doesn’t stand for anything. It loops us
together and enough loops make a city.

We are not a city, yet, but we’re almost
there. The municipality of us already has
its neighbourhoods. Legendair winks and
whooshes  in  his  dashboard-corner,
Townes paces in the shadows, and the
plethora of other-than-human cells I’m
host  to  throng   the  corridors  of  my
derelict body. It’s our body now. Tubes
loop us together, keep us going. Going.
Not  alone.  Townes,  you  did  end  up
singing a lonesome tune, as it happens.
The straightest line home turned into a
figure eight you’ve never been able to
escape. Almost never.

                                       Around

                          not                        about

            living                                         each

                          movement           mixed

                                           angels

                                                        angels

                          mixed               movement

            each                                               living

                         about                    not

                                         around

Townes, this autumn is falling like the
fool it is, and I’m fretting about you. I’d
love to hear you sing again, like you did
before the songs froze up inside you.
The angel of winter won’t remember
your name, but I still do for now. You’re
mixing into us. Soon it will be impossible
to  isolate  your  lines  from  our  flow  of
words and your name from our own. We
don’t own the words that are our names
any more than any of the other ones.
They are around us, but not about us. As
you were, until the last few days. Your
edges are blurring, feathers softening
your outline.

You’re still clinging to today, but it’s
melting  in  your  clutches.  As  song
bluebirds peel off and lift into the sky,
your dreams are puddling around your
feet. Youth has melted away, all your
yesterdays and today, and only memories
remain. They too will melt into us, as
tomorrows follow each other along our
strings of unfurled words. We can’t send
them anywhere to kindle. Only inside us
will they ever again light up.

---

You can pre-order Fare Thee Well, Miss Carousel forthcoming with HVTN Press here.

Ellen Dillon is a poet and teacher from Limerick. Her latest book, Fare Thee Well, Miss Carousel, is forthcoming from HVTN Press and tentatives is just out from Pamenar Press. Previous books look at Irish history from the perspective of butter (Butter Intervention, Veer 2, 2022), the teaching life of Stéphane Mallarmé (Morsel May Sleep, Sublunary Editions, 2021), and Stephen Malkmus’s guitar (Sonnets to Malkmus, Sad Press, 2019). Twitter: @altkrelb