Lost in Translation

Lost in Translation
by Bryon Slack

I mapped the shape of my dream in string,
pinning each angle and wrapping
each loop where it left one point
and entered the next
until the threads pulsed with life,
a glowing snake consuming
its own tail and then...
I cradled a universe
before my eyes gone wide
in wonderment.

Like the child so distant in time,
the weathered oak remembering the sun
warming through its narrow sapling branches,
I turned and held it out excitedly
to proclaim what I had built.

Their eyes looked over it blankly
before returning to meet my gaze,
“Why are you holding all that yarn?”

My mouth opens silently,
the explanation stolen
by the passing shades
of every failed explanation
that had gone before.

My spirit plummets through
ozone, cloud, toward waiting ground
in unison with the falling
of my deflated shoulders
as all the internal grates
snap shut—
some mumbled explanation
ripe with a subtextual
nevermind.

It’s okay, we’ve been here a lot.