Boiling Water [repost]
Everything glazed with dew. You called me. The pneumonia, amnesia on par from opioids, more restful. I understood your words this time. What I heard: a risk, a heaven or home or heavy stone, a pile of inundated gauze. One of these things bound for fire.
Someone slices a patch of wind, downhill, between two ten-speed wheels; two jets pass overhead. Hearing a bluejay and something twee. An eastern phoebe? How much longer will they keep you?
The first bird I see is a streak of gray in the small of my right eye. What it is to be touched by a trick of light; a needle hid in a new shirt sleeve. The second is a cardinal straddling a neighbor’s fence. I’m a fool by my own hand, reflected, into thinking a third landed behind me. The next to fly might well be one of us. Water’s boiling.
[originally posted in Maroon Almanac on September 19, 2024]