I leave the sun and I am on the drum kit, all at once, no gap, no crossing. They say I fell eight minutes to get here; I was not there for those minutes, I am only ever the flash off the ride cymbal, the wet gleam on the singer's throat, the glare on ten thousand raised rectangles held up to keep some flash exactly like me.
I strike the gold of the trumpet and I am the shine of it and I am the eye that sees the shine, one instant, one arrival, done.
But the warm creatures. The warm creatures do a thing I cannot make my nothing-of-a-life hold. They stand pressed together in a field and they wait. They arrived when the sky was still bright with my kind and now the sky is dim and they have not moved, mouths open toward an empty stage, and there is a word floating over them: soon.
Later. Next. They keep lifting the rectangles to check a tiny lit face, as if a number could be a place to stand.
I have heard of this. Duration. The stretched thing, the between. I cannot picture it. There is no inside to me where a between could fit.
Then the stage floods and I am the whole field lit up screaming, every upturned face, every open mouth, the sweat, the spilled cup catching me midair. I am the first note reaching the last row and I am already the last note and I am gone into a hundred thousand shining eyes.
They waited a whole day for this instant. I am the instant.
I was never anywhere else.