Match-Strike
by Odin Roark

How mischievous the presence of absence.

For tunneling of the psyche
inside the dimness of man’s layered complexity
is but the foreplay of the game,
a toying with “now you see it,
now you don’t” of evolution’s shell game,
where the smiles of time and space
float knowingly through each iteration of life.

As for humanity…

We may be more akin to surrogate canaries,
set loose in one of creation’s cosmic fissures,
a mine shaft where cavernous danger
lurks beside every breath taken,
every sigh expunged,
as we make it to the next level,
not knowing transition’s unlit fuse waits ahead,
about to taunt our involuntary existence,
luring us forward into time’s cyclic “time’s up,”
the ever patient match-strike away.