—and now a few steps
from wall to wall,
up those stairs
or down the others,
then slightly to the left,
if not the right,
from a wall within a wall
up to the seventh threshold,
from wherever to wherever
to the very intersection
where your hopes, errors, failures,
efforts, plans, and new hopes
cross paths
so as to part.
Road after road
without retreat.
Access only to those
you have before you,
and there, as if in consolation,
twist after twist,
gasp after gasp,
view after view.
You may choose
where to be or not to be,
to overpass or to pull over,
only not to overlook.
So this way or that,
if not the other,
by intuition, by premonition,
by common sense, by chance,
by hook or crook,
by crooked shortcuts.
Through whichever rows upon rows
of corridors and gates,
quick, since in the meantime
your time is running short,
from place to place,
to those many still left open,
where there’s perplexity and darkness
but also gaps and rapture,
where there’s happiness, though mishap
is just a step behind,
whereas elsewhere, hither thither,
here and there, wherever,
fortune in misfortune
like brackets in parentheses,
and yes to all of this,
then abruptly an abyss,
an abyss, but a little bridge,
a little bridge, but shaky,
shaky, but the only,
there’s no other.
There must be an exit somewhere,
that’s more than certain.
But you don’t look for it,
it looks for you,
it’s been stalking you
from the start,
and this labyrinth
is none other than
than your, for the duration,
your, until not your,
flight, flight—