untarnish something beautiful
unlock something kind
toss up the weary working world
turn over something fine
the longing has set in again
snap and sneer and try to hide
the oil slick, the rotting log
cussing and fussing
and angsting away
filching a purpose
to endure the day
the ocean’s breathing
salty on my lips
like your body
breathing heavy
and strong
grey rocks beneath my feet
dancing through the cracks
up to brush my hair
back
gathering wisps
like your hands
moving softly
but strong
wrapping my sweater tighter
cabled wool squeeze me small
like your arms
breathing held
too long
trap me in a small space and show me how to live
tell me once and do another
make liars of us all
parents, teachers, children
teach one another ill
and send us into battle
up a hill, a hill, a hill
rolling a ball
small as the universe
gathered up to find it ourselves
to find ourselves
down
was it soaring or falling?
falling is free, free, free
I was high when I learned to weep
In love when first I mourned
Kicking and screaming when we were born
Our hearts and strings were bound
and bound to be
trapped in a universe
small as a ball
thinking we might live
My secret dream is
Holed up in the garret room
At the top of the house
Sipping tea and pulling faded fragrant volumes
From the shelves
Listening to them flap their pages
Like pompous old men or young revolutionaries
Throwing ideas and visions
To spin in the chimney smoke
Pressed, caressed into condensation on the window pane
Spinning records ‘round the gramophone
And waltzing in coattails
With a garrulous Emily or Anne, swishing her pink beaded cocktail dress
And laughing like crossed cups and the upset chandelier
Oblivious to the wheels of the world splashing past down on the asphalt
The babbling and blaring of wavelengths to and from satellites orbiting overhead
Cries of children, braying politicians, ringtones, deaf drones, construction zones
A noisy world without
A noisy world within
Which will echo, echo, echo out?
See the skeleton through the wings?
It’s hollow
Full of air
Os and COs
1s and 2s
Fanning out the membranes:
Glowing furry windows
Filtering streetlights, night’s lights
Murky with pigment, veins
Bony crosses framing leather panes
Cruising Zephyr’s highway
Membrane turned outside in
Cupped upward like a woman
Dark and warm
For once not pummeled
By elements
The Os and COs
The Hs
The 2s
Pepper the virgin lining
Instead
Whipping past a frenzied head
Scampering, teetering
Trying not to scatter to the ends
On Zephyr’s bends
The 2 membranes teeter
totter
See how she flies blind?
Dark and listening
For once not pummeled
By elementary
Ohs and ahhs
Exclamations—shrieks
Surprise at being
Naked as a baby
Blind as a bat
Free as a word
rough-hewn umbilical cord
monstrous, natural
swinging and whipping
if not for its baby ballast:
tiny me
gasping
hand over hand
fibers and pores
shrunken, like Alice,
on nerve’s last, soggy straw
I trail through the void
skirts flapping
hair snapping
hard against my
tear-stained
wind-burnt
doe-eyed
face
pulled along the water—above
but not out of trouble
for the sea raged
the fish leapt
and I hung
and I swung,
hands gripping
rope burning
sweaty slipping
it’s dark and I’m
lost at speeds
o’er seas, endless seas
stop the storm
and drop my form
and walk me Home
Home Home
walk with me
on water, endless water
endlessly Home, Home, Home
