little post-it notes floating in the air,
raining down with thoughts dried and bare
until there's nothing left of them
on the page,
except some random aside,
some little thought that intends to mean
but means so little under
the twilight, dwindling, thumb-sucking time frame
crunched out of existence
right before bed
the lights were turned off
and i sit in the dark
i think-in-the-dark,
meditating on the cumulative
transmutations, transformative calculations
tallied on some grand calculator
sitting up there,
look, in the sky,
counting out the atoms
blinking in and out,
in some ricocheting pattern,
until the calculator's batteries run out
eating the neon sign
floating overhead,
pretending i know what it says,
while walking, pacing, sprinting,
as fast as i can,
which i admit is not very fast,
from the filching, crab-like claws
pinching at the stars,
one at a time,
until the night drowns out
and i'm left in the dark
Fred Aiken Writing 