Shelter

Sept. 18: Dangerous conditions today on the Tennessee River.

The wind struggles with the current; the water churns behind the pylons.

Even the sky is in turmoil.

 

I am the surface of the water. I am broken; a fractured frame of glass,

stretched thin from shore to shore. All I can hear is the wind tearing

upstream, toward my home.

 

The furniture in the living room rearranges to accommodate the flood.

Soon we will live in an aquarium with glass walls, so all can see:

we are bent by the current.

 

(Slowly, with time)

 

5:35 pm; I can hear the blood pulsing in the veins behind my ears.

The wind has died down, and all besides that steadfast throb is quiet.

I am alive; I am a being.

Black Hole

We are the broken chain of DNA

in a double helix extending

from one end of the universe to the other.

What once was whole now dangles

between planets like a cracked tooth

long ready to be pulled. 

 

(“We don’t want to be corrected,”

we cry; “we want to be erased.”)

 

Why is it that we scream so loudly,

with only the moon to echo our cries?

We don’t belong here, tethered by gravity

to a bruised Earth. We are monsters here;

we are the monsters we hear in the dark.

 

Take a handful of soil and toss it to space;

will that island of life one day house us all?

Or does the soil belong here, with us?

 

This screaming, this tethered existence –

maybe this is simply the life of a seed

waiting to sprout. Alone in the soil,

made for reaching arms and branches.

 

I’ve never been in love. I am a seed

that doesn’t believe in sprouting.

Maybe I am the broken chain of DNA;

maybe, while the world crisscrosses the universe in a grid,

I alone am dangling from the south pole,

aimless, and unfettered, and unconnected.

 

Maybe I am a mystery,

but all mysteries wish to be found out –

if only that didn’t mean ceasing to be.

Copper Symphony

A candle shines through the doorway. My fingers still hold a smoldering wick, burning my skin like a glove. “I am home,” I say, to no one in particular – maybe the bricks need to hear it. My shadow dances opposite the flame across their mason-faces. I am a mirror to the naked world.

Above my head, behind me, there is a window. Against it beats rain softly, caressing the glass and whispering of colder weather. It is still in this room, where the candle twists. The music has stopped. My piano lies dormant and expectant. I do not think sound is necessary, here.

Flame: incessant and full of mirth. It spreads beneath the carpet and behind the walls. My body feels no heat, but the candle I see bows and rises excitedly. The air changes; charged. If I were a storm, I would have lightning for arms. Rise. Stand. My feet glow with electricity. I cannot tell you whether it is my hands or the tongues of flame that bring the piano to life, but there is music with the laughter of a fiddle.

An island forms outside the window, as the rain builds up worlds on the pavement. What wonders there are in autumn! My fingers rest; my reflection stands to make amends while I admire the candle in the other room.