GRACE
"I dream like a drink
or I stone like a dream,"
is a translation
of something
I encountered in old French–
something I need to say
to the students
in my class this morning
where we're reading
an American epic
of sprawling and Pop-Tarts
and mass shootings
and moonlight. But
I don't know anymore,
if I ever did, how to communicate it
in a way that makes sense, how to
teach or be taught.
Taut as a wire conducting
these distortions.
I slide from one thing
to another on a glacier.
It's a lathery hot day
but tomorrow welcomes
autumn. Twenty degrees
cooler and less than
a target. I will need
to go shopping
for some new shirts
in immutable patterns
and ineffable colors.
I will need a new hoodie
to cover my bewilderment.
Yesterday, on the Internet
someone I'd just met, sang
"Bloodstains" by Agent Orange
against a green screen's
cosmic turbulence.
I'm not sure why
I'm remembering that.
I think I would like to be
so free and unselfconscious.
I think I would like to be
summoned on a wing.
But right now, as I mentioned,
I am summoned to a class.
The students will be falling
like heavy drops of rain
and I will be a beautiful tractor.
TYPO
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