Each night I dissolve
Each morning I stitch my atoms back together
It is a painstaking process
I walk through the day a little rearranged
The hours glide or flicker or speed or loiter
And inside these moments of allotted consciousness
I am constantly collecting myself or letting myself spill over in droplets on the floor or sparks flying against the wall
When you are learning to Be A Person they don’t tell you that sometimes your soul just
Colors outside the lines of your body
And in those moments you don’t even understand what Personhood is
You think that maybe you are a thought
Or an idea or a dream or a yelp of pain
Or a moment by the sea years and years ago
Or the absence of space
But sometimes you sit in the belly of a hammock
And let the soles of your feet kiss each other
And let the corners of your mouth stretch north
And the song of the afternoon is the duet between the you and the I
And the sun and the earth don’t give a damn what you are they’re just pleased you’ve joined in
And THEN then the nameless YES enters and in between your ribs is
Every desert and every lush green thing and by god they GO together!
But this waking drifting, this cat nap transcendence — trance ‘n dance
It never stays for long
(you can’t grow roots in the belly of a hammock)
So what I do — I scoop up what I can
To add to the tapestry
Of tomorrow’s atoms
And it’s still a bitch
To put me back together again
But at least there’s a wild lovely new
Thread or two.
That should do for a while.