Sentence Fragment

May 7 2020

The sentence I'd left dangling

the night before.

When I was thoroughly written-out.

When my body had stiffened

from sitting too long.

And when the sky was starting to soften

to a milky light.

As it does, this time of year

at too early an hour for me;

a creature of night

who prefers the cover of dark.

The night before,

when I could only hope

I'd pick up where I left off,

tucking up to my desk

the way an old draft horse
who has done this countless times before
settles into its harness.

The reassuring weight

of supple leather, softened with sweat.

The way it stands, expectantly,

as a well-worn bridle

is slipped around its neck

the familiar bit snugged tight.

And then goes clomping off

on the milk route's daily rounds.

A sentence fragment,

which my grade school teacher

would have circled in red

before deducting marks.

An open-ended start

I'm left to carry on.

Like the wide open nozzle

of an unattended fire-hose,

whipping furiously across the page

and soaking everything imaginable

if I fail to take charge,

picking my target

controlling the flow of words.

The unattended brain

is no less scattershot.

So as I slept on it

my thoughts must have crystallized

somewhere in its depths.

Sleep

when dreams make sense

before veering off into madness.

When memory fails

and time vanishes.

When we are present and absent at once.

In the end

the horse returned to the barn

the nozzle was throttled back
the sentence wrote itself.

Now

I will sleep on it again

and dream of words to come.