(now) amid
falling blackbirds

and seeming-flights
        from my mother’s car
        to the garage door,

i will not recall
whether        i walked

        or crawled.

A man walks
sickly
under umbrella,
and the storm is sandy,
according to CNN:
it is a time to come,
indeterminate;
it is Kabul,
in summer, maybe:
World Water Monopoly
flies (triumphant) this time
on its carpets
on, maybe,
neighboring Persia:
the Markets are not to take
to suddenly turn upward.

        At first, such calm: the river
drifting sleepily along its banks,

        sunlight glinting off water – no sound
                but the hush of the current,

splashing over sun-bleached bones,
        a dead log rising in the air

        like summer heat, the garden snake
                lounging in dirt & dry leaves.

        Then: a thrashing in the water,
                 the sun's reflection broken

into wicked, grinning knives, the water
                frothed by twisting scales,
        the predator

        coiled in a pulsing half-knot,
emerging from beneath the glass waves

in triumph.
                      Jaws clamped tight

& dragging the tiny green frog –
        frozen, in shock,     or terror,
                                or denial –

        which puts up no struggle at all, but sits,
so perfectly still, so utterly    silent in defeat,

        slowly retreating without a fight
                deep into the serpent's maw

a feeling of dread— . . . —a crack in the ship’s hull
dreams of water rushing in / the awareness
                    of my body governed by gravity
            & the recollection that
                        heavy things are made to sink.
what choices remain? a woman screams &
        a chandelier crashes—
                            a dark shadow spreads across the floor.

The way you stack this music
voice atop voice
you lean to
inhale how rhythms breathe
and cause the body’s bounce to
accumulate effort. Nothing
sleeps here: light births itself
—light is a misery that folds
hours into absence. You run,
the music follows, voice and
further voice misleading the
body: if you close your eyes
to imagine a moment of
prayer, rest, this day
will become light creasing
your purpose, setting the
skin aflame.