j.a. van wagner :: wordobject :: imagetime

You say you are going to unearth it, the whatever, where it lies in state beneath the
                                           but they get the idea. 
You are going to name it, bring it to light! 

You hurry eastward down a well-lit avenue with the second-hand perambulator you’ve bought for hauling, nodding all the while at the others as they pass, two and three abreast, in their going-out clothes, pushing their perambulators, wheeling their whatevers in the opposite direction. You are by now so late the streets are cold. 

With all that creaking of wheels and doffing of hats, doffing of … who is it wears hats these days? … and compliments exchanged (those beautifully-chromed wheel spokes! how well turned-out you look!), employing only safe words from one of the other centuries, no one thinks to ask:  How is yours? 
No, it is clear to them your perambulator is empty. 

Is it because you are late, because your perambulator is in disrepair, or because of your many failed promises? Haven’t you been saying for how long now? that you will

                     though for sure, you are fooling no one . 

It’s not any lie you’ve told, it’s not your furtive gait nor the tell-tale fingerprints left in the clay of your dissembling,  yet it’s as plain as


                In shame you arrive at the plot where you last

                             where it is, where it is still, undisturbed in its slumbers, if you could say such a thing slumbers, if it has not been your own feckless slumber hanging over it like unrained rain.