every little renaissance is echoed in the colosseum empty off the walls of tin pan alley til the space between the skin and shirt grows thin til the cells of flesh and material are indistinguishable under a microscope til all the water goes gas and the potholes pop after the day s gone dark and the next chord s struck out of necessity and they peel the paper from the walls or pick another color paint and the next chord echoes like shrinking nickels in a metal elevator falling single file size order through the hole in your pocket landing round a silhouette of the threat of silence the lifespan of the flight path of a slowly sinking skipping stone the dying light of the law s dying bells the timespan between wave crests is what makes the crest the crest i know the temptation to straighten the spines of men hunched from years of keeping nickels in their shirt pockets to lift these wood men from the pines and in one jerk snap every bone disk and plate in place like adjusting some rusty segmented piece of an erector set from the 1950s but the human spine is an iron rod and when bent needs time and heat to make straight and it s easier to fill front pockets with nickels than it is to make a cold metal supple the lifespan of the flight path of a slowly sinking skipping stone the dying light of the law s dying bells the timespan between wave crests is what makes the crest the crest