Hindsight

Hindsight is not a time machine. She can’t pendulate
back and forth. Just back. Reset. And back again.

I built her corpse inside my garage.
Forking through scrap-metal salads, I clicked and cranked together
triangle after triangle until they formed a skeletal globe, then
latched extensions from crust to junkyard car seat at the core—
installing magnets, lights, electricity.

Balancing dials on the arm rest, I nervously
tugged my seat belt and flicked the switch.

The lights darted inward. Positive magnets chased them
in hot pursuit, toward Hindsight’s negative core.
The frame collapsed upon itself.
When the light reached the center (with nowhere else to run),
the magnets caught up, bumping light off continuum’s cliff.
And the framing followed. My ship and I winked away.

The little, silver ball fell back with yester-daze,
down ruffled trails of cosmic fabric, rolling to a rest
on an empire, shiny and new—where a dozen shadows
once walked into the daylight and toppled people over,
leaving rubbles of stolen dreams.

I arrived as the shadows were shaping, raced
to warn the kings, philosophers, children—who
looked at me as loony while they squeezed their egocentric blankies.
I hastened to the parents—who knew, yet looked at me
with pity while stating, “Nothing can be done.”

So I infiltrated the darkness to stem the shadows alone.
Although, trying to fend off darkness is as trying to capture light—
you struggle for a grip yet end with nothing in your hands.
And where I thought I brought newfangled variables,
I found myself within the equation, hidden behind unknowns.

As gloom pushed heavy on the city (a quivering house of cards),
I bullied myself back into my spheroid ship,
reset Hindsight’s bearings, and switched away.

Restored inside my garage, I slumped over the seat belt, waiting
for heart and stomach to join the team. A breeze
escaped from the neighborhood, through a window,
engaging freshness on my wet and furrowed brow.

My ship said,
“The universe can’t take back what already it has spoken.”
Nodding, I jettisoned my list of dates where history seemed too cruel
and vowed to only fuss with the ever here and now.

Now I ride, a tourist, through that scope of god-like memories.
And she graciously takes me.
Not a time machine. Just Hindsight.