The Downside

Slipwise on the downside,

Wrinkle warping into mind,

Fugitive and victim of reality unkind,

Riddle-rhymer of the timesweep, and a past decays

Unseen,

A limping form escaping through the cold snare’s biting skein.

Dayebb of dusk godlings, semi-spells fall into strange,

Tangling on the downside all things flaw

And so must change,

Dogs crimson brittle barking trail sad rabbits on the lam,

As the hunters of the mindfield twist and question who I am.

In the limbo of the downside shrieks a curved

And sunmelt storm,

Should thou point me deviation, pray kind sir, define the norm,

Should the rabbit, clawed and crippling, seek blind burrows

In the fog,

I will answer for his wanderings - now,

call off your crimson dog.

Joyce Effinger