All the World a Line Segment
When I was born, fully grown, in the universe of no change, Nothing grew up. The sun and the trees, my mother and sister, My daughters: they sung kind songs to me From their childhood hovels in the heavens. I felt their pumping ventricles in their line-segment jumps Through the hop-scotch field in the stars. Their uncased hearts slather my chest in apricot spread with every beat. I let it subsume. I ingratiate myself to the wondrous bears Sniffing my neck. I play royal dead. I rip off my chest hairs To remember a smooth mound makes the best burial ground. To honor my love, I do private and public things experimentally. I am thankful for the bee's bumbling brightness. It keeps the lights on in my tenement rib cage! Remembering helps me find them Inside myself when my own flights of fancy Crash on a deserted island caked over in oil. I am thankful for not having a heart attack in the heat. I am thankful for the cicadas who remind me to scream. Everyone should do it. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! And then the green choir sings me back to Corsica Where Napoleon brags about spending 30,000 lives a month. I could convince a bear to eat him, I think. I could perfume him In the most feral perfume humankind has ever smelled. A pack of hungry swindlers would eat him alive, Wouldn’t leave a single morsel to chance, waltzing down the Parisian backstreets With a full belly, ready for a nap. I am walking, Lavender draped, wriggling, along the perimeter of the Earth Leaving a black line over everything with my calligraphy brush clogs. Did you know my accordion recites careful prayers if you choke it? Did you know my accordion vomited an entire redwood? You can hear the woodland sprites screaming in its measured breaths, And I want to give them rest. I swear to never play again. I plant golden seeds in every soil. Let us celebrate! All the world a line segment That connects us. The eraser coming to wipe the pulp Is an imperfect weapon. Call the smudges left on paper A foundation for revolution. I will drag my feet And feel like I'm really contributing. Call that mistake As a sense of identity. Call that a mistaken sense of belonging. Whatever. Leave the lamp lit. I'm coming home.