Playing God

Reconciliation running late, off-schedule:

compassion derailed into a drainage ditch,

spillways littered with mangled metal,

lies twisted into a shape

resembling truth while cankerblossoms

open into oncology-boggling glowers,

petals of purloined letters edited

for persecution. A child loses

dinosaurs, parks, ice cream, and grandparents

while the steel wheels strike the track

into submission, grounded like

a defunct Gulfstream

on a dilapidated runway with rocks, weeds, and

unreliable time ticking and kicking it away,

luxuriously loitering,

lollygagging, schedules slain by

lascivious lack of lopsided longevity

Deferrals and delays will

nevertheless

arrive and assert authority.