There was a secret society
you knew about
monitoring
and which you've since outgrown,
and now you miss that curious kinship
and tragically nothing we can do
can convince you that we give a damn
much less that you were once and remain
the target of an international conspiracy
and twenty-four hour surveillance,
and for the narrative's sake,
ancient prophecies, phases of the moon,
it's just meaning.
Geht's weiter.
European games and shadows,
or reflections, it takes years of training
and field experience to tell the difference
sometimes.
And you?
Your father was a civil war ghost.
You inherited the characteristic persistence,
but about-faced on the revisionism and living in the past,
and flew to the moon on mid-90s pessimism,
ker plow

taking for granted that it is both at once
a soundstage
in the Hollywood Hills, pre-sighted and forward looking,
and just a rock, floating around us,
empty and silent, watching us
ebb and flow, rise and fall,
x and y
and will continue to do so
until long after we can only echo the sentiment
and blast off into eternity locked in a mute struggle,
a conversation summing up
all that can be summed up.
I think we're being followed.