Is it surprising for someone so convinced
Of the singular reality of temporality to be
So deeply suspicious of narrative? Perhaps
Not considering how routinely linear stories
Experienced linearly, chop up and resequence
The events as presented, looping, doubling,
Reversing, the more so with the invention
Of writing and in medias res, still more
After the printing press, and vastly more
In recorded narratives, particularly film
And digital where the geometric, Einsteinian
Faith that time has no final direction is bolstered
By the illusionist wizards of scenes and effects.
And yet, deeply suspicious as I am, I admit,
Those are the narratives I love best, lost
In time conundrums, multiple perspectives,
Memories played back to front, front to back,
The loopiest of loops, the defiance of death,
The same day over and over and over again
That is never, not once the same. Similarily,
Still, the stills are never still, the original
Prints so cleverly cut still decay, the data
Become corrupted, and it all, however well spliced,
Fades away. So that’s not it. What the egg
Of an unhatched soul wants only is not release
From lies but from the lie that there is a truth
That does not alter when alteration finds it.
The arc is long but it bends, is ever bending
Toward what I am not certain, but then,
Again, I am certain of nothing.
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