Why do I need to be right?
I tear our scorched tablecloth
into eight squares
and dye them crimson.
I make noise with my mouth
and move air with my arms.
How do I know what I know?
My legs grow legs and
effortlessly walk the line
on which I hang the laundry.
Socks with thick soles
that take days to dry,
tapestried table napkins,
pinstripe shirts whose cuffs
are a miracle
of collusion and collapse:
I want to kiss
the wrist that’s buttoned in them.
My legs grow legs; I walk
to the late morning ferry
with a ripe apricot pulsing
in my blue tin cup.
I move air with my arms,
summer’s rolling promise.
When I take lunch
from my pack at the dock, the fruit
is a fuzzy purse of liquid:
nectar in a skin sack,
intact, what I know
the whole flesh one
sweet bruise.
~ from Double Somersaults (Brick Books, 1999)
