(a tragedy experienced in the middle of gym class)

I made nicknames for nicknames

hoping my sins

might fade away

 

the face of a new metal roof

glared at me

from the side of the baseball field

(have you ever

felt the wind pulling you free

of the earth?

I have

at the top of those bleachers)

 

I just

forgot

that I was quiet

 

other feet rattled behind me,

the dew on the field

so distant

 

I’m almost, almost

(the cars parked below are almost)

living by the sadness

of a school yard

(turning thirty)

the sunshine is slanting down,

down,

into your left eye

as the bus turns a corner

in the  city

with buildings too tall for their

radiator souls

and their window-ledge shoulders

rubbing warmly in turn

refuge from a winter wind;

the seats

are warm

you could fall asleep

(easy, easy, to not be awake)

 an old lady, rows ahead

nods away

deeper and deeper this little bus goes

and it’s destination you are

afraid

to know

not your office or a shop or

even the bank

but the end of your 29th year.

(a house or a home or neither)

the house was such an

open thing

doors like eyelids

peeled backwards from

empty sockets

and windows that exhale, inhale

hoping not to suffocate

on crepe-paper curtains

the children would breeze through the

rooms

like foreign bits of wind

new words, shrubs from the garden

the walls

absorbed

their fingerprints

the ceilings took up their laughter

every corner

a net for a memory

I wonder

that their beds

did not conspire to eat them,

keep them safe and only here

 

loneliness of the wind

how the wind howls in its loneliness

its face forever lost

with eyes and lips and nose

that the world can never know

doomed to wander the planet

unable to find a resting place

only as it passes,

is its presence known

when we watch the trees bend as it goes

Much like a face among the crowd

only its slight disturbance is acknowleged

and it continues all alone.

(you play your piano in the hours of an autumn storm)

leaves in a heavy wind

strong piano chords

even seated at the bench

your feet are sinking in their

amounting decay;

someone left the door open,

using up the vacancies

between minor and flat

(you could play just as well

with your hands in your lap).

(the family, wishing to defy time)

shoulder to shoulder at the family hour

like overgrown ants

a huddle of bugs

coats and hats and mother’s smile

an added weight

on each pair of limbs

somber and happy in the bottom of hearts,

arteries that once rubbed elbows

happiness is a wish

for the wind to pick them up

and keep them together,

like this

(it is eternally spring between us)

we had no intentions

beyond that blossom of laughter,

pollinated by your hand

on mine

from across a car with mere feet

to be braved

and your kiss, tumultuous wind,

we are flower heads touched by

bee legs in the spring

(while you stand at the edge of your driveway)

you do not wave

so I do not wave,

but the wind holds our hands

(acknowledges us both, kisses

through clothing)

and somehow we know it is enough