excalibur ovenbird All I want is a day, but you keep becoming—othering—sliding from your familiar skin into the body of someone I knew twenty years ago. I lift my face and find you are him—nails painted black, TOOL t-shirt, black combat boots laced tight at the ankle. He’s made a necklace of a child’s tin lunchbox, the clasp a silver secret closed around his heart. A likeness of his own body is etched on the lid, skin made from a million parallelograms, his largeness, his softness, everything exposed, a paleolithic Venus stretched in repose, a shining constellation across an ancient dark. He takes me to the lake and we traverse the boardwalk that leads to the center, first solid beneath my feet, then spongy, the planks further apart, their ends frayed and pocked with rot. I fall to my knees then press my belly to the ground, inch my way forward, too afraid to stand lest I fall from this narrow strip of sense, suspended on the surface of the unconscious. Where the trail ends I peer over the edge, just in time to watch two stern park rangers rise from the depths, each holding their right hand aloft, clad in an oiled leather gauntlet, a leucistic eagle perched on each fist, bright birds shaking water from their wings, readying themselves for flight. This is the lady of the lake, twinned, dressed in crisp beige uniform slacks and a stetson hat, offering (what?) a weapon? An archetype? A sliver of myth? I’m not brave enough to rise, and when the eagles fly they will not come back. There’s so much water already. No one will notice a sea of tears. 261018 what's it to you? who go blather from