floating and leaving no trace
–do not confuse forward movement
with progress, he says
he cleans a fingernail
with the point of a knife
i huddle in a corner
all of my skin
curled in ribbons
at my feet
but surprisingly
there is not a drop of blood
–why is that? i ask
he shrugs
–just forward movement, he says
–but not progress?
he offers a smile, the first in hours
—let’s see about progress
after we’ve cut your
eyes free from those sockets
i become a slight movement in the earth
a ripple through fecund soil
crawl with my belly against a warming mother
so warm i hear my pores open
welcoming the sunlight like a friend
long-forgotten
there comes a certain
satisfaction–i will not
call it joy–in futility
not in the inability
or the inevitability
but in the finality
the having an answer
of their being no doubt
shadows at their darkest
at their hungriest
yes, and stars, too
too hot to approach
and yet the calming whisper
–so it goes
i have nothing
left to lift
not my hands
not my eyes
nor raise my ire
peace is all
overwhelming
turgidity
slowness that is stillness
unmoving like summer rain
or heavy syrup
heavy as the earth
beneath my feet
i shed my skin
one last time
with no intent
of emerging clad
in a new glistening
sheath
no swelling music
just a swelling
of the gut
i meditated until i couldn’t feel
my toes and succeeded
in reversing my skin
with my bones
it seemed such a shame to keep all
that armor on the inside
i try to turn and make my way back
the hands are firm on my shoulders
and pull me toward clouds like columns
drag me, really, but my feet
rip through the cool cumulus
like it’s cotton candy
i swat at the hands
but we pick up speed
soon we will be through
those gates
which will close irrevocably
i imagine all those people
i spent so much time avoiding
and now they’re all in there
my shirt is covered in sins
like stains from every
spaghetti dinner i ever ate
every misstep plain as day
written on me
written on my clothes
tattooed on my face
a small greek chorus rushes behind me
trying to keep up
strolling left to right to left
listing
listing
listing
everything i have ever done
i am convinced the same thing
happens in hell
but everyone there refuses to hide
their disappointment
but here they will make excuses for you
you won’t have to defend yourself
but the damn greek chorus
refuses to shut up
and my mouth fills with clouds
i have ceased to trust
the sound of the wind
as it whispers in the pines
the wind lies and cheats
a dirty fighter
it has thrown dust
in my eyes
my tears run
filthy and muddy
and i am blinded
ignorance is bliss
you say
let me tell you
there’s a pragmatic kind
of not knowing
that is better than knowing
where you can convince
yourself that you do not need
to know
what you do not want
to know
a lizard scurries past
on the sidewalk
sans tail
and i’m happy for him
having evaded a predator perhaps
or possibly just a kid
on a bike
but he must feel that loss
off balance
without that weight
to anchor him
for when the wind
picks up and whispers
the black bird has no song for me
his voice a hybrid of
dismissive laughter and
cynical certainty
still
he digs in the wet earth
for fat worms
and doesn’t complain
about the mud
on his beak
remember play-doh
the salty pasty smell
the unnatural colors
how it squished
between your fingers like mud or bread dough
the little die press that came with it
how you got in trouble
for playing with it in the house
because eventually
you’d drop a piece in the carpet
no amount of kneading
could disentangle it from the fibers
the disappointment of leaving the lid
off a can and finding
a little salty blob of stone
but the worst
–both an enlightenment
and eclipsing of some inner sun–
was mixing the colors
to make rainbow stars and cylinders
discovering too late
for your childhood ocd
that you couldn’t unmix them
that once entangled
they remained forever so
as an adult you realized
why they never bothered
to include brown in the set
since it was the inevitable
conclusion
Words and Feathers 