and god knows what a scoop does

and God can no more track the movement of the stars than I can predict the choices of the horns

- which is to say, a thought to the time tells me all I need to know. a glance to the gallery shows me peanuts (it's what they're getting paid). a zip of my lip hushes the entire section. a nudge of my knee betrays that they're still hanging around.

love me, love my bears - compete though they do for who has the least neck, the most hair. credit shared for the ones that keep me going, and relent to letting me get on with them once we get there, in style.

prayers answered in little ways, for little ones - poise me there, arrayed just so between anchoring bells. my chair tilted just right for the glint of a glance, the quiet flicks of eyes and ears. the twitches, the touches, the tries.

well. that makes it sound frightfully intimate. but it's an unspoken sort of a thing.

from their, our, mouths to god's own ears.

if i stand up, at the front, it's so they can see me. if i sit down, in the back, it's so they can't.

or something like that. something sweetly symmetrical.

no one else's opinion matters. no one else's time matters.

but no matter where i go, where i am, i cannot truly hide.

i wouldn't, truly, want to.