Overthinking is challenged in this parable about being pulled into categorical thinking by virtue of growing up

All is Taffy

Considering how opposite the world:

Throat singing of the Tuvan of the Altai and Sayans

        against despair

Hollering mad lost eyes asquint alarmed

        or zazen

Considering partnership:

Hawk-ripped sinew from road kill skunk

        or scraping stones free of lichen

The engine walls of engorged vagina purring fit to burst

        and waterfalls

The quest to harvest category:

To link, an illusion

        while all is taffy

Pink orange baby blue maple taffy

Through the vacation window

Drawn by bowed steel limbs

Slick and firm and sweet

Fused forever in a moment

        ‘til you are pulled away

When I was born

1968

Born the year of fire

tear gas and Nam

Sirhan Sirhan

King, smog

My Lai and

windshield glare

Old to young

by the river

trade waters

Squinting to take

in what is thin

to define

Gawk jaw

at the sun’s

decline

Eyes unfolding

incapable of how

the seas

Host distant fires

that are quenched

in the throat

Expunging

the odes, the marches

like chess pieces

Transfixed

to study form

of the future

Hair growing

and falling away

against the knowns

Minds at attention

soldiered into place

without wish

How the horizon

kneels, surrenders

its bow strings

Bowing to pray

before dying

bent and spent

We have figured

worse, but then

would that we

Struggle til

vanishing

in the dark

How we gather

to gawk

at the fires