Cars full of people going to work
Noisy refrigerator
Garbage truck rattle
For a moment they stop
and in the silence
I can hear my heart beat.
Anxiety out of control
Reassurance is try and miss
Taxi cruises up and
it has the light off
Face of a friend who doesn’t hear you
when you call out in a crowd
Visit to a museum gallery while they announce
they’re closing in 15 minutes.
Read. Type. Look at Pinterest
Midsection squeezing itself like a lemon
while you pin a picture of a cute dog
No workout pictures because you already have
tight abs, yes, they are really so tight
you almost can’t breathe
There’s a hollow feeling in the middle
Can’t be hunger
Food would make you vomit
You eat anyway but you don’t
taste anything
which is okay because
you don’t want to
The realization of that presses down
on you and you do stop breathing
for a bit
You want to live and enjoy
living but you can’t remember
how you did it or when
No sand castles
Just holes in the beach
You dig up the sand with your little shovel and
the tide fills them in and makes them
soupy
You start again a distance away repeating
it’ll be okay like saying it will
make a difference this time
it’ll be okay.
Power hum of bees far overhead
Traffic jammin’ in the Elder flowers.
Even the shade is hot
I try to keep my sweat out of the chemicals
I’m rubbing into the plastic over the headlights.
Years past this would have been your job
To go along with putting out the trash cans
Making sure the tires are inflated properly
Paying the taxes and mowing the lawn.
All my jobs now.
You were the one who wanted
To live in the country.
I the one surprised to find I loved it more
Than you did.
Learning to polish the grime off the headlights
Sharpen the knives
Check the fusebox
Fix the plumbing
I can’t remember your voice
But I can hear you saying
To clean the tools
Put them where they belong.
The headlights are clear, look new
I clean the tools
I put them away
And wonder where I belong now.
Sometimes I can almost taste a different life
Where foods that never touched
my tongue
are familiar
Where smells I can’t
remember are
nevertheless
remembered.
I can taste the still, busy air
layered with lives
soaked with labor’s sweat
washed with cheap soap
floating down hallways in
crowded buildings
Fatigue and love and someone else’s
hate are buried
in the old wood of the door frames above
the flaked thin carpet
where I never walked
She queried him silently
Hoping he would have her answers
As he seemed to hold all of the questions;
That she would find them all composed
In black and white
Sharp
F Sharp
They would be black notes across the manuscript of her.
They would point the direction
Whatever it was
Forward
Backward
Upside down
They would lead inexorably
By mathematical degrees
To the coda, bypassing
The colon crouched before the bar, always to
Repeat
Repeat
She queried him silently
Hoping that tattoo of her fingers
On the tablecloth would cue him
To give her the answers – pianissimo
Even as he sang his questions FORTE
Duet for two solos.
The horse is surprised to see you
here on the moon.
His lip is curled.
His eye rolls at you
and away.
You
have discovered his Secret.
If you promise not to tell, perhaps
he will not chase you and bite
your moon suit
and make you breathe space.
You can go home again and
walk in the air.
Walk past the fields and stroll
past the barns.
You will see the horses
and wonder
Have any of these been to the moon?
Have any of these been to the moon?
And then you might begin to look
at the cows
and the sheep and
all the rest.
It’s good to wonder, isn’t it?
Isn’t it?
