level the echoing green

you are all of you so familiar

as the days wind on
they grind your cheekbones
your lashes
and your sudden vibrant grins
into the cast iron printing plates of my memory
and turn your cadenced poise
into familiar spectres that taunt from my periphery

with you it's been months,
with you a few more,
and finally with you
it's been these impatient years

but there's something in the latency of dreams,
the parasitic influence of night visions both treasured and sloughed away,
that wears down my resistance and the playing field
until all three of you are caught in a never-ending scrimmage
on the most level ground

you are all of you running echoes of a song I have yet to finish
whose tune transmutes this wearisome strength
to volatility
which makes saving face the only investment I can afford to buy into

having paid for my share of this,
I wonder
when the return will ever catch up with me.