Throughlines

My story with A, from 1 to 5
With B, from 2 to 4
C, from 3 to 6
D, from 7 to 9
E, from 6 to 12
F, from 10 to 22
G, from 15 to 27
H, from 28 to 32

Between any two letters
Between any two numbers
A throughline can begin — and end

Each story
Spawns another
A with Y, B with S, F with M
From 1 to 19, from 37 to 92
From yesterday to tomorrow —
And again

Between any two letters
Between any two numbers

Twenty people, two hundred
Twenty million — uncountable
Shoes, jackets, houses
Trains caught, meetings missed
Friends gained, friends lost

Innumerable angles, stories —
Captured in drama, fiction, film
In mind

What happened
To him and his job
To her and that house
To him on that walk, during that talk

To me — and my problem
My hope, desire
My want, frustration
My need, pursuit

My story with X
Which I think of today
Began at 37 —

What does it matter
When another throughline appears
Another story, with another letter
Will begin —
And this one will end

Among institutions
Of sorting, selecting, curating —
Historians, psychologists
Biographers, journalists —

Libraries filled with fragments
Arbitrarily chosen
Throughlines
Between any two letters
Any two numbers

Edifices of medicine, science, philosophy
Histories, identities
Friendships, enmities —

Assembled tales — constructed, slanted
Narrower than the sight
Of a blinkered horse

Morality, law, justice —
Wars, treaties, executions, constructions —
All built
On narratives — called knowledge —
Partial, blinkered, false

Fashioned from a few letters
Few numbers
Plucked from the soup

Of innumerable letters
Innumerable numbers

A throughline
Of you —
Of me