There are only so many ways

this can go within a pseudo-infinite

timespan. I gently push

through dark, still water

to get to the door with the light

I think has always been there.

Nobody notices my wet clothes

as I walk through the stone arch

as only the bedraggled and tired

find their way on this path.

Is it late afternoon? Is it early autumn?

A group of elders sits on the far shore

(everywhere I look from where I float

seems far away)

and they seem jaded in a way I don’t want

for myself. People are awful but

the world is a wonderful place, I say,

but they don’t (want to) hear me.

I have to paddle back for something

I forgot and it feels like time is sticky

like cotton candy or earthworms.

I don’t mind backtracking because

there’s always something new to see.

I admit I’d like to be done

with this murky pool and see

some mountains, take a dryer path,

maybe sharing it with a friendly face.

I wake and sleep and it’s much the same

until I find my way across.

sitting still

with a few humming dreams

circling about

and it’s really no different

here or there or then and now

but we wish to see

the other path

which seems smoother

but it’s like choosing

the other lane at the grocery store

that will inevitably slow

as soon as you make a move

and you’ve got are a few impulses

like gum and regret to chew on

Notes of freesia and melon

popped up today,

a bit sickly sweet just like 1994

when the sun made few impressions

mixed with smoking meat and jungle drums,

I rushed through mentally

while my legs caught up eventually.

Years flickered by like the dancing fish

at the hands of a fisherman

in a flip book I once saw,

a few surprises but mostly

an inevitable ruin

that comes each time

I open my eyes now.

Blink. Boom.

Blink. Crackle.

Blink. Gasp.

I learned an Easter song

in a trailer that doubled as a schoolroom.

Feeling accomplished at age 7

pronouncing “rotogravure”

in a deep southern lilt

my parents mocked incessantly.

Years don’t seem to pass at Easter.

The hymns are the same. Same eggs.

Same palms from last week.

It’s a tired week, solemn

though many claim it’s a joy,

which it’s supposed to be.

I’ve always been confused by that.

Can’t quite get a grip

on what I was taught about going to hell

versus being worth anyone’s time,

let alone worth saving,

unless the savior is a hoarder

like of matchbooks and ticket stubs,

things used and meant to be discarded.

I’ve never managed an Easter bonnet either,

what with all the wild hair.

When I walk down the avenue,

it’s with more surety than I feel

and less pizzazz than I’d like

though maybe that’s what’s meant to be.

I saw a nature special

about fire and they used the word

“pure” over and over

which I felt at the time

was an odd term

for something essentially

destructive but they showed

its cleansing properties

and the clearing away of rubbish

to build anew, and I thought

how appropriate since a lover will say

“I burn for you” which I have discovered

can be the purest expression

of something potentially base

but beautiful once it blooms.