right now when

right now
while paper airplanes
still find refuge among burdened treetops
it’s hardest to sense resistance
when squeezing autumn in your hand
like a crumpled yellow train ticket
with the name of a city
where you’ll return some day anyway

and clamorous kids
chase birds from their well-worn places
into the cracked border air
which sticks to the wings
changing the direction of movement
and sharpening the sense of height

we touch encoded keys
we forget the meaning of words
blindly treading
through tunnels of related sounds
somehow intruded upon with irruptions
spectres of night cars
and occasionally
the spirits of homeless dogs

ignoring the laws of motion
or for that matter any of our rules

and the hopeless nevers
and the untroubled forevers
and breaths into a telephone’s membrane
trembling from a chilling despair
somehow invariably recalled
when you reset your watch again
or change time altogether

right now when