--- T O M   D E V A N E Y

He liked a good tune if it lasted. 
Upon a dirty bone colored rug, 
soothingly threadbare, his feet—
alert for problems.  For the billionth time 
every crack, every splinter, 
every commonplace thing pushed  
like spiders across the stars,
a slow exhalation, unable to distinguish 
between the clear calm of love and
an event that can happen.
Like the lonely lakes of the Triassic Age,
or forward into one of the nearer ages,
falling faintly through the universe
among remarks about horses and forecasts,
from glass to glass and left to left—all in the foot.