No Longer Withdrawn
The rains enter in
In the middle of the dark green park. Arms up, mouth open. And the rains enter in.
Living, breathing, racing people assail me. I am washed up, I am bent, I am coming apart. The lantern is too fragile. Too dim. It leads somewhere but I don’t know how to step beyond the pavement. I can barely separate shadows from the moonless sky. I can’t negotiate anything. Only chase the calm that is pulled out of me. I linger on the steps of every house on the way back to my apartment. Doors remain sealed against me. I don’t go in.
Cosmic surgery. Yes there are great gaps in the clouds. Yes they are coming for me. No I don’t know what I want to lose yet. I am waiting to be brought to my feet. I am standing but there’s no ground.
Everything vibrates. Everything.
Shot through me with the force of a passing train, I am shown how even silence is not true Silence. How the house without an earthquake shakes. It rattles under me. Brings me home though. I know this. And I am no longer withdrawn. My fingers touch a steady, deep pulse. What it must feel like to be in the sky. Clouds are outlined so clearly.
She screams but not unpleasantly. She demands to be noticed. So I watch. I throw away the paddle. I take in the sky and the river in the same glance. Occasional darkness…
