“In this way, the length of our life is metaphorically the length
of thread that is coiled on a spool.”
—Wikipedia definition for ‘Mortal Coil’
To cull—
as in wheat from the chaff,
the best from the lot,
the weak in a herd of livestock.
To turn—
leaves
and then the year.
I turn to you
and a cool wind closes
on other possibilities.
To stir—
She stirred—that’s how they knew
she was only sleeping.
To thrash—
Sometimes the child had seizures.
To mound hay—
as in Monet’s heaped forms,
those yellows and shadows,
his sight failing,
a secret beauty.
To lay in rings or spirals—
a winding toward, or away from—
on one end the beginning,
on the other, zero.