for all its unmeaning

Will you live to eighty-three?
Will you ever welcome me?—REM

Virgil and Wyatt are shooting at invisible dragons
that shimmer and dance over the rooftops of the stables
they aim low and wide for the mirage effect

just after High Three-noon occurs mythic collateral
further down the meridian

[these fire-hoofers have secret names, unspeakable
outside of conflagration]

like some sequential pruritus [tell me you know this
effect] lights are firing up
into constellations do you know this effect

of history this working at one that lights another
like the beacons of the body for there in the sand-
<paintings the itch-bird to a low hum weaves>

and it is prūrītus for it is prurient as nerve gas
that worms subcutaneously that ramifies the systemics
that pauses and looks out when it reaches the eye
prurience and prurites and the itch
the deep ache that is such prefix snapping as it swings

low over Tombstone plucking the wounded into dark
legends that dance upon the blinding wavetops

no says Virgil
no, forever

.