May the road to fulfillment
be long and steep and smeared
with fog, moss-lined, leaf-strewn,
rockslide-prone, oft-closed for repair,
haunted, the darker the better, no sun-
or moon-light, bulbs of streetlights,
if any, smashed, filaments exposed
to the cold like nerves, scarred by
lightning, by overturned freight trucks,
by mudslides left uncleared, the only
life or light that of your high beams,
flickering, weak like a voice shouting
praise at a waterfall, how beautiful,
how beautiful the roar, needless of
your praise, soaking your backpack's
Nylon, water leaking onto your
just-unboxed GPS, its delicate
internals no less miraculous than
the scales of a trout, or shiny:
nothing should find its way
to your door within hours
of wanting it.
Fulfillment
