Re: Recovery
things can open too fast
I bang the wall just another time and it falls over
so much I’m not ready for
I railed on how the wall was keeping me in, making me less
without admitting my debt for all it was keeping out
letting me avoid
to suddenly get to places, tools and actions
I hadn’t accessed in over a month
seldom gradual switch-backs
or like trails without switchbacks only stairs
with down barely easier than up
after so much time spent level
going just partway up a ladder and finding scaffolding
going from a long juice fast to a global menu of favorites
jumping on the dusty bicycle then hearing its engine
uphill or dark in every direction
I know I can but do I want to
Who’s with Me
my personal ecology/menagerie/workforce
from the clichéd to the never been classified
the continually reproducing, the once a decade flares
the check-in every week or so for clean clothes
and fresh fruit, gone for several months
but now monopolizing the conversation and menu
what prefers windowless, what can’t move without aroma,
what you can set your watch by, what’s so late
i forgot it was coming, the couldn’t be more inappropriate
the we-never-met before that knows the secret handshake,
is this a mirror or a time-machine window, my wallet
but full of yen and kwanza, an ID with the back of my head
i understand English but no one here understands me
architecture i have to duck for, favorite foods
i’ve never seen before, today i know the shortcuts,
yesterday i pleaded with the floor to listen
predicting the weather with a thermometer under my tongue
and a pressure cuff on my wrist, trying to remember where
the exits are and that not every door’s ground level
Not Yet December
is this chill just atop my skin
or right inside it, gently closing the door
separating interior and exterior seasons
a life as a year, a month as a breath
and now wind I can see and hear
not feel inside me, not see the dry field
surrendering summer skin, sudden birds
taunting the wind, somewhere else there’s rain I can feel
as if that newly precipitated neighborhood’s inside me
there’ll be the kind of weather
when the electricity goes out at night
I don’t worry but get quickly dressed
more stars than satellites, so few cars
I smell thunder, my shoes scuff sparks
from the asphalt who thinks no one’s watching
how far in can the wind get—a sky basement,
what does the temperature difference tween my cold fingers
and my busily digesting stomach stir up?
my head the most consistent high pressure front
going from warm space to cold are my bones more surprised
than my skin, less than a breeze but movement
what would move toward me if it could, a wall that wants to stay
while the rest of my house surrenders
siding skin with what little insulation settled & thinned
times the wind goes around me cause I’m no challenge
not even friction to trade
All Kinds of Wind
the wind is a conveyor belt conveying what,
a train that doesn’t stop to pick up or release passengers
pollen, dust, aromas that may be from near or far
changed from the travel, interactions in the closed cabin of threads
within subcurrents within momentum skin, a siren comes and goes
but the traffic sound is another wind
with soft throbs and louder gusts
my body’s a wind antenna farm, sensors all over for various phenomena and waves
do the wind and heat need to reach my brain to change my emotions
who triggers what, approximates what, compare & contract
how a temperature feels different if you’re on the rising or declining side of the curve—
the day’s curve, the chain of days as what chain of fronts
moving and working through each other and us, thermal distribution
nowhere near as manipulable as wealth and resources, worth is an opinion
of abstract authority we can’t see or affect, causing the abundances and deficits,
social and economic storms and droughts. atmospheric rivers and heat domes
as the wind moves the leaves whose shadows fall across my hands and desk
the wind against and through my shirt, to and from my skin
wind drying throat, thousands of throats
drying pockets, inner linings, shy of light
as a tunnel is just an alley with a roof
how can i look at what’s coming down
blinded by physical, solar and societal winds
to what’s waiting in the open, gaining on me
the ground’s own wind shifting me away from
Among Wings
if I was a bird
like a marsh hawk hidden in the reeds
rising suddenly 15-20 feet
then plunging back to where it heard
its next meal scurrying on the ground
as there’s never one crow, seldom less than three
moving whenever someone gets too close, in a spherical sense
though I can’t jump up to the wire or tree branch
you just never know leg strength
wings disguised as a coat
birds who eat other birds
who put their eggs in other nests
gypsy birds, birds who migrate for weeks
fledglings who realize
no matter how much they squawk and chirp
the ground won’t get any closer
maybe the only way to see mom
is to rise up to her
owl feathered like a tree
a bird to blend with each shade of sky
water birds with no breath to hold
clearly seeing rodents too far away to get to
swallows’ mini-vortexes pulling insects from other dimensions
hummingbirds so used to sugar water spring flowers confuse them
moss and lichen attract insects so birds will come and groom them,
spread their spores and gift occasional fertilizer
I’m a bird half denim blue, half dark plaid
summer plumage so random in color and flesh
no external wings, a nest I couldn’t have made myself
when someone says “fly” I look for what to swat