So, that old anger, chomped down from years ago

Some kind of decayed corpse

Drag round again (and again)

Once a stinking albatross but now some bones and feathers, dried sinew, inedible

How they hurt you then (when you were small, when you were standing in that queue so long ago, when the world stopped being your playground, when …)

You squint up from your down place into bright sunlight

Blinded

Pulling that old thing from far ago with your frayed, ratty, furry tramp’s string retied forever a faded parcel blue

More important than anything

Then

Now?

Everybody knows all sorts of things

Everybody knows you should leave the past behind

Everybody knows the stumps of fingers worn away digging for yesterday

Prove me right if I could only change that thing

Fix the unfix

Unthrow that insult, rock, clever remark, eternal regret

That old thing takes your breath one day

Hands hold shimmering dust of what you have, were, would be

Just dust, that old thing, just dust