No Story
Sipping coffee in an unfamiliar shop
in shades faking celebrity or notoriety
he noticed a slim paperback left behind
its cover torn off, its cheap pages thumbed dirty,
read a few pages so familiar
he could be re-reading
The light in the room faded in and out
not in flashes, in slow surges
He remembered no re-lived
a night spent in a small tent
alone in deep woods
animal rustlings in the trees
darkness heavy and thick as lake water
time thought lost to the mind’s slow blanking sweep
wiping the moment’s window clear
of briefly young now elderly rain and mud
fooling us into thinking there are other times than this
strung on wisps of fantasy
“Don’t be fooled by skimmings,”
the small book said in a lisped mind-echo
“there are no stories.”
The Dog Star 
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