Wayne Bornholdt

An inch and an eternity

Gasping for a moment of exhalation—

A cry for mercy but words,

Caught in the net, flail and twist,

Remain embedded beyond reach.

Each syllable finds itself alone, exiled—

Connotation slips, falls into vapid creases,

A pawned infraction,

An inch and an eternity apart.

Time’s promises evaded, commitments eluded,

The queasy pieties, announced in flat monotones,

This cacophony of ears bent towards heaven

But listening closely to the flesh’s panting.

I, too, am remote—stealing

A moment, a universe apart

From the Word enfleshed, the impaled Verbum,

Flayed, twisted on the coarse topography of Palestinian timber.

The words agonizing, brief—

Bear all things in utter isolation.

Wayne Bornholdt is a retired bookseller who lives in West Michigan.  He holds degrees in philosophy and theological studies.  He has had work published in Ekstasis, The Penwood Review, Vita Poetica and other journals.