Sprinklings of dried underhand,

Fell upon us in the itching.

It was time for the revealing,

But not quite.

The spell had to persist

For a little while yet.

Unknown to ourselves,

We contrived our 'flaking',

Over sideboard and sink.

The hour shifted.

The sense unmade.

The world not yet upon us,

As little digits scraped

Across the screen of the interface.

I see the words now,

Becoming visible in kind.

Lines manifest

Against the white backdrop

Of dream bleed through.

A benighted vision

To have avail itself of you.

The words took on a dialect,

A shaping;

They uttered themselves out.

The morning broke itself upon our eyes,

In a drifting dawn of consciousness.

Not yet the hour.

This was the rueful time of Only,

The latent brother of Also,

Still wet

From the womb kiss

of a night's fidget.

The shadows had to admit that

They no longer had our backs.

Taste dissolved on the tongue,

While moments enlarged in the oven light

Of bereft and unfettered thought.

This was Nothing of a persistent kind.

Spider footsteps

Were heard tapping

On the separating wall paper blister

That covered the ceiling

Beneath upstairs floor.

Underhand indeed.

It fell to him.

The Not quite expected.