Poetry

These unusual days, people driving or walking or talking are grating
my nerves: tiny brittle petals of me, littered. Pink. At home, I crochet
these bits into a shapeless sweater. But it’s not smooth. It’s seedy.
Nothing lays flat. I put on my wings, instead, hedged
by the cliffs around me. Flying is a trick
we can all learn. Take a deep breath, let go
enough so the tips of your toes dance on air.
Fly past me. Fly past you. We can all fly, Fran says,
when we don’t think about what we are doing. Do you
believe her? Does it matter? It’s the soaring that counts, the way
what we cling to flutters behind us creating kaleidoscope messages.

Sheepish bloat of a furniture store at night, items
faintly illumined through
the glass displaying the square footage it takes
to suggest arrangements

we can make in our pleasantly enclosed lives.
Starfish of ceiling fans, thrones
of headboards, wooden dining tables holding forth
for flocks of prim parsons chairs.

And this vehicle a vestibule for the body,
a house for aching
bones, a chamber for whatever nimble soul
may be a part of the deal.

In an airy, ancient apartment in Boston
I’ve lain with a girl I knew
I wouldn’t stay with, have seen how much
that silence can say.

The room was lovely, too. Plush king bed, gray
linen comforter, a surplus
of natural light, sensual postmodern canvases,
a sculpture of a tree in the corner.

I am still wandering streetlight-stained highways
while a furnished home beckons,
am still exhuming and examining the past,
listless, listening.