X - Fortune

Silent and dusty the cavern,

chinks of light beam the air,
spatter the floor
and in the centre, the arc of a
wheel sticks from a large black
slit -
down below they are waking up -
for it is time.

A silence of iron and no groan
and the thing begins to turn, hub-greased.
My mind's eye on the wall
like a fly looks on -
not one squeak as it revolves, slow
and steady machinery
well-oiled and working.

So dim, the painted writing
can't be seen, one segment wanes,
one waxes, and new colours
show, new words, until
ascendancy is at the full,
a tail frisks and disappears,
a head emerges, questioning,
sniffs the air and gleaming eyes
taste the unknown, the unseen
fortune in the head 
radiating.

The wheel has turned,
the wheel has stopped.
It is ten o'clock by my
digital, and a light breeze fishes
through the curtains.

Up here, on the surface of our lives,
all looks the same,
but in the subterranean,
all, all has changed.

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